I love the sound black vultures make. They sound like a dog barking. One morning I was walking through my neighborhood and heard “Woof! Woof!” I turned expecting to see a dog and instead saw five or six vultures gathered in someone’s front yard. Made my day.
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Crows are at least smart. Pigeons have the IQ of flying bricks and about as welcome as well.
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I live in Churchill, and regularly see pigeons taken from the wire in front of my house. It’s pretty much eye-level with my front porch, so it’s an interesting show.
First you’ll see the shadow fly overheard, then the rest of the flock will scatter. A split second later, it happens.
When a red-tailed hawk hits an unsuspecting pigeon at high speed, it sounds a lot like a catcher taking a fastball.
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As cool as this was I’m sorry everyone’s so down on the pigeons. I have two wonderful pigeon experiences. In Trafalgar Square I bought one of those 10p cups of birdseed and had a great time feeding pigeons for all of the thirty seconds it lasted. Taking the cup back to the stand a pigeon landed on my arm. It looked at the cup, then at me. I know I’m anthropomorphizing but it seemed to be so clearly saying, “Please sir, can I have a bit?” that I bought another cup.
And then in the Underground station I saw a couple of pigeons walking off a train.
I’d probably have a greater dislike of them if I lived in an area infested with pigeons, but I can’t even bring myself to hate starlings.
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I have eaten pigeon before. The tiny and multitudinous bones were the most memorable part of the experience.
Thank you TinyLongwing, that’s exactly what I was hoping to find out!
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I’ve had two similarly raptorious experiences. The first was in a near-empty movie theater parking lot, where a hawk was dining in the middle of the blacktop. It saw me, picked up its lunch, and laboriously flapped off to some bushes for some privacy.
The second time happened while I was walking my dogs; a pigeon dropped from the sky and landed on the street with a sound like the Sunday paper hitting the front porch. Up above, the agent of its demise was staring at me, as if to say “Get those fluffy murder-quadrapeds out of here so I can dine in peace!”
Oh, pigeon pie is nice. Assuming you started with a nice wild wood pigeon or something. Not a flying trashcan.
We had a neighbour who used to keep birds of prey - falcons, kestrels, and owls - he had an eagle owl and a barn owl.
I remember we went down to the cornfields one autumn around sunset and fed the barn owl on bits of chick. Wearing the glove and sending him off to fly around the field to come back to feed is an memory that’ll stay with me forever.
Downer ending to the story; soon after, some scumbag broke into his garden and killed all the birds, except the eagle owl.
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We have at least one red tailed hawk who makes regular appearances in our neighborhood (the Lower East Side in Manhattan) and uses a similar hunting technique. With the big 12-26 story apartment buildings on our block, the hawk has a pretty easy time driving its prey (almost always a pigeon) into a wall. But it happens fast and would be very difficult to capture on video.
Last time I saw a scene like this with a pigeon being picked apart, it was on a children’s playground and we had a good time trying to gently explain to the gathered preschoolers what exactly was happening.
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There’s a sharp-shinned hawk that drives prey into my in-laws big picture window in the breakfast nook.
“mmmm, lovely pancakes”
–WHUMP–
“<flinch>Hawk’s got another one.”
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You guys are so mean! How would you feel if you were a pretty little dove and people went around calling you a pigeon and rooting for the hawks to get you?
Also, is that Dream of the Endless?
“…feed the birds, tuppence a bag …”
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Depends on the raptor. Golden Eagles are big enough to take cats by themselves, and the much smaller Harris’s Hawks that Ratel posted about can tag-team one to exhaustion.
I’ve never had a hawk poop on my head. Pigeons, otoh…
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I wish I’d filmed the small flock (flocklet?) of seven turkeys that I saw near a hospital in Peoria a few years ago; they’d apparently lived in the woods on a nearby bluff, and were driven into the more urban area by a heavy snowfall in search of food.
I like the Souped Up Ravel for the fast version, but I think what you really need is Hawk Eating Pigeon Yakety Sax Version.
This may be unpopular, but:
I think pigeons are gorgeous. Since birds can see into the ultraviolet, the shimmery-purple parts around their necks must be absolutely resplendent to other pigeons…
(Yes, yes, I know, and a ‘here-I-am’ to hawks.)
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We have a family of red tails resident on campus that keeps the squirrel population down.
Especially in the summer when that year’s chicks are learning how to hunt.
Didn’t the most recent common ancestor of mammals and dinosaur happen before the triassic?
