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Grubbin'
Philadelphia, PA - Nairi - Sunday, December 18th, 2005 : goo
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mmm tasty!
Does anyone know what kind of bird that is?
This article has been viewed 3226 times in the last 3 years
joey: 18th Dec 2005 - 01:02 GMT
we should ask richard attenborough. he would know, right elaine?
rose and i think you got a peregrine falcon there.
elaine: 18th Dec 2005 - 10:00 GMT
yeah, and bill oddie. looks like a peregrine falcon to me too, how very very exciting. they followed a pair with thier ugly chick in a quarry somewhere two years ago on springwatch, it was fabulous watching them dogfighting the pigeons and bringing their bloody remains back for chicky. they outfly them, herd them into a corner and just drop silently and suddenly onto their prey. then last year they had a live webcam on a nest in a tower block in central london, it was fab. i love birds of prey best of all because of their derring do, but also because they are big enough to see without binoculars. i don't like lenses.
great photos, keep us posted?
elaine: 18th Dec 2005 - 15:19 GMT
fresh pigeon, gotta be good, right? except they are dreadful cannibals. this area is massively muslim and the kids all eat halal version kfc, so the streets are littered with dead hen. pigeons eat this. still, at least it is halal
GGP: 18th Dec 2005 - 15:45 GMT
i'd beg to differ on the peregrine front; this hawk seems too big and chunky and the coloring looks wrong for that. perhaps a red-shouldered hawk or red-tailed hawk? anyway, these are great shots. Two weeks ago, I had a similar thrill here in Brooklyn. My halogen cat started staring out the window in a VERY intense way and when I followed her gaze out the window, I saw in my neighbor's hemlock tree not ten feet away a sharp-shinned hawk consuming a pigeon. I watched it for an hour. Amazing thing to see it consume prey--my first such experience after many years of birdwatching. The bird in this series could even be a sharp-shinned; they're known for swooping into bird feeder areas to capture prey. The angles here don't lend themselves to clear identification, at least not by someone at my very amateur level, but they're great images of an exciting bird. Don't need to know what it's called to enjoy its majesty! I am happy to see these.
Nairi: 18th Dec 2005 - 15:48 GMT
thanks joey and elaine. I would have better pictures of the falcon if I wasn't so scared. heh.
elaine: 18th Dec 2005 - 16:26 GMT
well, whatever it is, and i, too, am way too amateur to be sure, also this is abroad, and they do things differently there, the great thing is it is likely to be local and therefore spottable again. now you know it is there you will see it if it pitches up again
joey: 18th Dec 2005 - 18:17 GMT
my bird-watching, best friend leo would have known what kind of bird this is - go rest his soul. hey leo - can we get a comment from the afterlife please ????? really you miss you, man.
GGP: 18th Dec 2005 - 21:11 GMT
recently read a wonderful book by JA Baker, a British author, called The Peregrine. It details daily walks taken in wintertime in search of a pair of peregrines, chronicles the weather, the sky, the activities of the birds, and the narrator's growing "oneness" with the birds and the place. it is a book that requires some patience; the pacing is methodical and sometimes there is a sense of repetition with only the most infinitesimal variation--much like a long walk in wintertime. But the descriptions are stunning and the book exerts a strange power. There are many fine descriptions of the birds hunting and consuming their prey. This must be a MUCH easier sight to come upon in wintertime, when the trees are bare and the landscape more open to the human eye.
kc: 18th Dec 2005 - 21:28 GMT
I'll vote with GGP on the red-tailed, though I am no hawk expert. Still, size looks right and I think that stripe-y necklace around the neck may be somewhat diagnostic. Plus it looks just like all those ones where you can see the rufous tail as plain as day! (If only w. could for a moment merge this list with ebirds...)....Anyhow, I saw scene much like this recently in Prospect Park, pigeon with outstretched wing, hawk yanking the feathers out the feathers, they floated out like dandelion, drifting down amid the unsuspecting joggers...carnage above!
elaine: 18th Dec 2005 - 22:07 GMT
i saw a really nice docco which made me cry (natch) which was about a woman's year between dogs - her dog dies and she takes walks without one so sees much more stuff, she takes you round the year and then gets a puppy. i cried buckets because i am a pushover for sentiment, but it was rescued from being over played by the simple constructing device and all the fab stuff she filmed over the year and the cycle of death and life thereof. i fancy that peregrine book i might just look it out
elaine: 18th Dec 2005 - 22:13 GMT
well if i wanted to read it from your recommendation then i really do now - check out this review books.guardian.co.uk/departments/scienceandnature/story/0,6000,1488815,00.html
GGP: 19th Dec 2005 - 04:36 GMT
elaine: ah, yes. the essay you linked to appears as the preface to the edition I read and provides a nice bit of context for this very idiosyncratic book. if you read it, i will be interested in your reaction to it.
GGP: elaine, what is the name of the documentary?
elaine: 19th Dec 2005 - 22:51 GMT
i am ashamed to say i do not know. i watched it randomly and it took me a while to realise how good it was and i just never caught that info. so sorry, i am usually good for that kind of detail.
guardian and granta are of the same lefty stock - not the working men with cigarettes with the lit bit held inside their hand and a love for uncle joe stalin, but middle class intellectuals with william morris wallpaper. it surprises me not that the review is a close bedfellow.
GGP: 20th Dec 2005 - 14:23 GMT
well, the doc sounds great. i can personally relate to the scenario, and that scenario is, in part, how i found my way to citynoise. long, dogless walks in springtime lead me to pet bird and from there to citynoise. Now that I have a pup, the walks are different and it's harder to focus on the camera. There's an entirely different quality to the two kinds of walking/seeing. I'm glad some filmmaker had the idea of tracking that experience on film.
elaine: 20th Dec 2005 - 14:58 GMT
yeah, it was nice watching it and starting off with just a passing interest as a nature nerd and then getting more and more drawn in. i had forgotten about the dog thing at the beginning until the end when she filmed a walk with her new puppy and i cried buckets
in related news, whenever i do metta meditation you are supposed to visualise someone close you love unproblematically and not sexually, and sometimes i just can't think of a human, and i always use charlie. i was telling my physio this yesterday in the same session as the brain coral thing and i cried then too.
dawgs sniff
jack: 21st Dec 2005 - 15:50 GMT
animals are animals. they are cute and friendly, cry for the human child. the one hurt by other humans. ive seen men get killed, but i always cry when i see a child hurt.
Sid: 31st Jan 2006 - 00:15 GMT
The big bird is an Owl, you can see his horns in the 4th pic, and he caught pigeon he is eating..
Empress Signs LLC : 2nd Mar 2006 - 19:54 GMT
It seems like our resident falcon who is often sited around the Art Museum area. There is a pair who is tracked from DC to Philly and there is even a website dedicated to them and their migration pattern.
Empress Signs LLC : 2nd Mar 2006 - 22:50 GMT
Here is the above mentioned site. Does this guy look familliar? www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/falcon/docs/summary2000.htm
will: I know what it is it's called a Red Tail Hawk
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