Thursday, December 26, 2013

Score!

What started as a Mars Bar tribute site is quickly turning into a hawk blog. I can't help it.  Seeing Nature up close and personal in the middle of the city just amazes me.  Besides, the hawks are a lot of fun.

Today's featured juvenile stalked this man for a while, creeping up behind him and watching intently as he tore open a bag of pretzels.  Alas, he wasn't in the mood to share.

Someone is about to be mugged of his pretzels

It then spent a good deal of time swooping around the immediate area, diving off every possible perch.

Red tail in Tompkins Square 

Going for the kill 

Red tail in Tompkins Square

Finally, it made a kill.  I have to say, this was the clumsiest and most unprofessional hawk kill I've ever seen, but this is a juvenile and it's still learning.

It nailed a gigantic rat in some brambles in this stump.  After digging its talons in, the hawk discovered it was stuck, unable to pull the rat out of the tangle.  It also wasn't able to kill the rat right away, so the poor rodent screamed for several minutes while the hawk sat on top of it. 

Red tail with rat in Tompkins Square

It then struggled to drag the rat out and ate most of it on the ground before being able to fly away.

Red tail with rat in Tompkins Square

Red tail with rat in Tompkins Square

The hawk almost seems weighed down by the rat.  Or maybe it just likes to fly low.

Red tail with rat in Tompkins Square 

See more hawk photos on my Flickr page.

Previous hawk posts.

2 comments:

  1. Belated Christmas greetings! I'm really enjoying the hawk coverage.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, that's great!

    ReplyDelete