Posted on 01/08/2014 9:20:44 PM PST by Squawk 8888
I was walking to the post office this afternoon when I encountered this fella dining on a pigeon. He let me get quite close so I'm guessing he's quite accustomed to urban living. I just hope he comes around closer to my place because our building is infested with pigeons.
Juvenile bird, eh? He’s off to a good start.
Saw one of those with adult plumage in the trees by my house last year; probably eyeing the mourning doves.
They’re awesome....at first.
Then they’re bummin’ smokes, getting rambunkled on your half-empty beers and next thing: they’re screaming through your breezeway at 140 MPH......with the Law hot on their tail.
And you gotta help him because those little stinkers will take you down with ‘em.
It’s amazing how well they do in cities. They’re cliff-dwellers and have adapted to the high-rise buildings here, often with the help of building owners who have mounted boxes outside where they can nest. I’ve seen adults flying around downtown but this is the closest I ever got to one. Amazing creatures.
Color me jealous! ;-) All I have hanging around is a rabbit living under a pinon pine. I feed him/her a little lettuce a few times a year when it gets really cold. Your falcon would probably eat my rabbit...
There was one in my back yard last week. Now my little miniature pinscher/whatever-it-is puppyish thing can’t go outside by herself anymore. She’d be lunch, all eight pounds of her.
Yep, with the leaves gone, the raptors can see everything. And they can capture actually more than their own weight.
I have a comical, gorgeous red-tailed hawk that I love watching.
Pigeons = Flying Rats.
My dog makes my yard a rabbit free zone.
She'd like to make it a Deer Free Zone, but the deer come snortin' back at her.
I agree, which is why I’m rootin’ for the raptors (not the b-ball kind, even if they are the home team).
Nice work- all I did was crop the image from my phone.
Magnificent birds and highly effective predators. A nesting pair moved into the BP refinery at Whiting IN some years ago and the plant guys built an enclosed box over 100 ft. up on a coker where the birds could make a scrape and live. They became quite proud of their mascots and had many photos of them fishing out on Lake Michigan and returning to their refinery home.
I live in Chicago. I was walking by a downtown alley last summer when it seemed that it was snowing. I walked in looked up on a ledge and there was a falcon ferociously stripping a pigeon. Bloody feathers everywhere. Bold as heck. I took pictures of him 10 feet away as he chowed down.
We have about a dozen of them in my little burn in Texas. Lots of rabbits around for them to chow on...
Raptor Ping.
Great catch!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.