The Tremont Street Hawk

So I emerge from the Park Street T stop as I do every morning, but something is different.

There are no pigeons.

Usually I have to walk through hundreds of mangy city pigeons who are picking through garbage, fully confident that based on George Costanza's "we have a deal" I won't step on one.

But something is wrong. It's quiet. Spooky.

Out of the corner of my eye I see something moving through the air.

It's a huge gray hawk, its wing span at least three feet. Maybe more.

The hawk settles on the street lamp, looking down at the Tremont Street traffic and the passersby, including me.

Smart enough to know you never walk under a bird, I move to the inside of the sidewalk, the Granary Burying Ground on my left.

Sure enough, I watch the hawk shift and a wide swath of white excrement emerges in the sky, like a team of sky divers in tandem before they open their parachutes.

Sploosh.

I'm safely out of range but it's quite a mess.

And there are no pigeons in sight.

It's a suburban urban morning, courtesy of the gray hawk out of time, out of place.

Comments

[CarolW]

Yuck. No wonder the pigeons stayed away. Do hawks eat pigeons?

[Grimlocke]

I think the point is that the pigeons became that splatter of guano. Yes, hawks eat pigeons, and squirrels, and rats, and the occasional chihuahua or infant. Yay, habitat reclamation!

[Dan]

CarolW - looks like you got your answer.

Grimlocke - that's grim.