(Drivebycuriosity) - When you live in Manhattan you don´t expect to watch wildlife. But exactly that happened this morning as we looked out of our window on the Lower East Side. There was a hawk sitting on the roof of the neighboring house who had had caught a pigeon - and he was feasting on it! He seemed to be very careful and considerate - frequently he interrupted his bloody meal and browsed the environment. But it seems that he didn`t notice that we were watching him from a house across the yard.
It seems this bird is one of the Red-Tailed Hawks (even that his tail didn´t look so red wikipedia) who are at home in the nearby Tompkins Square Park (here is a link to a blog that specializes on New York´s hawks urbanhawks ). But it also could be a Marsh Hawk which looks similar ( wikipedia.).
Hawks have adapted to the big city and might even benefit from the urbanization. There is a lot of food (ubiquitous pigeons and smaller birds, rats & mice) and not many competitors (no more bears, wolves, pumas, coyotes and such). Manhattan is not just a grid of concrete canyons, there are a lot of parks and other green places where these birds can nest. The appearance of his hawk might be a sign that these birds are expanding their territory.
I own just a humble camera (Samsung ST150F) and shot the pictures free-handed. So the images are as good as they get. I show the hawk´s meal as bloody as it was, I see no sense in romanticizing wildlife.
After about 20 minutes the hawk grabbed his meal and flew away with it. Living in Manhattan is closer to nature than thought.
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