Wild South Philly / First Snowflake

[lblanchard]

I had two kinds of wild South Philly today. The first was drama at the bird feeder. There were no birds at all when I went down to make my omelet, despite a full bird feeder and a bitterly cold day. When I went to get a fork and looked out the window to see if there were any sparrows on our fence, I saw why: an enormous red-tailed hawk was sitting on our wisteria fence, not five feet from the house. I know they're big birds, but let me tell you, this guy was as big as or bigger than a Leghorn rooster. It stared at me with, I suspected, some disdain, and after a minute or two it took wing. It took about half an hour for the shaken sparrows to come creeping out of the hawkproof two-ply trellis on top of the fence.

The second wild thing was my wild boy at the elementary school. He saw me when I entered to do the tutoring and said, "oh, no, you again?" I think I was as happy as he was to find out that he had to go to some kind of social work assessment. Instead of the three ring circus I had my two girls and had a wonderful time reading about guide dogs with them.

The first snowflake didn't fall from the sky but sprang partly from my pattern book and partly from my mind. I wasn't happy with the way the pattern felt in my hands so I tweaked it. I was dubious until I blocked it; but now I think that once it has been thoroughly blocked I will like it a lot.

Since LJ has been frisky today I thought I'd post this on DW and let it crosspost when LJ is ready. [I forgot that I'd changed my LJ password, which is probably behind the repeated failures]

Comments

[endlessrarities]

That hawk sounds impressive! We've had sparrowhawks, kestrels and even a peregrine falcon visiting our feeder on occasions to snack on finches and pigeons. Incredible birds, but I do feel sorry for the creatures that get scoffed!

[lblanchard]

We had a peregrine a couple years ago, but this one was huge, bigger than a sparrowhawk although she was obviously hunting sparrows.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

my folks have feeder(s) in their back yard and I have been watching when the hawks decide to have snacks there. They are HUGE birds, aren't they? Especially the red tails. They are both scary and majestic at the same time! There are holly bushes in my folks' yard, and the little birds sometimes fly into them to hide from the hawk.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I find it odd that a Red Tail Hawk would be in the middle of Philly. Or have they put them there to help with the pigeon population? They do that in cities here with hawks...have them nest on Cathedrals and such.

BTW, I LOVE the snowflake you sent. It's graceful!Thank you!

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

The redtails have colonized naturally. A pair nested on a ledge outside the boardroom of the Franklin Institute about four years ago. The FI wisely built a nestbox to increase the safety of the little family and the pair have been raising clutches of three chicks each year.

Mama is on her second husband, though -- her first mate was struck by a truck while foraging on the Schuylkill Expressway last spring. There was drama and angst while we all wondered how Mama would cope. Turns out there was a new guy waiting in the wings. He showed up on the nest one day with a dead rodent and all was hunky dory thereafter. We're eager to see if the newlyweds show up again this year.

A lot of the juveniles seem to have made Philly their home, too. We have abundant parkland to provide cover, and there's a wildlife refuge on the southwestern edge of town, over by the airport.

We also have peregrines and bald eagles, all of which have nested on their own. The eagles are along the Delaware River -- I think we're up to three pairs now. One of them is in the wildlife refuge.

We get a lot of transients in spring and fall, too, being on the Atlantic Flyway as we are. I saw an osprey on a bike ride a year or so ago.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

They're enormous, especially when they're only six or seven feet away (counting the kitchen counter space). If there had been no window and if I were fast enough and crazy enough, I could have lunged and touched it. Then I'd have had to go to the emergency room to take care of the claw and bite marks.

Our urban streetwise hawks don't care much about people. I keep waiting for one of them to take out a Maltese on a roof deck.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

yeah, or a cat. I know! We have hawks on campus as well, and they have definitely cleaned up the vermin population, including pigeons.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I've read and heard about birds of prey becoming more urban in recent years and a lot of it depends on urban parks or natural areas. It's great that Philly has a lot of that. It's just cool to look out your window and see a Redtail.

Bald eagles! Now that's REALLY interesting. They've made a comeback in other areas, too, and last summer we saw one swoop across the highway in front of our car.