Some new wildlife hot on the heels of last week’s deer excitement. Tonight we spotted a bird of prey hanging out on the top of a power pole outside CDNews World HQ. A few months ago CDNews member Missa identified it as a Cooper’s Hawk.
At first we couldn’t figure out why he was waiting so patiently with all the commotion going on down on the ground. But then we looked down, and saw a mangled pigeon lying in the middle of the street.
Forty-five minutes later he saw an opening. He swooped down, picked up his prey, but had a hard time getting any altitude, landing on a fence down the block.
A dog bark a few minutes later sent him off again, flying low, around the corner, and out of sight down the next block.
There’s quite a lot of different bird species that have moved in since I did (in 97). I’ve seen a number of hawks around here (and a lot more little piles of pigeon feathers) recently. We’ve added flickers, scrub jays, oregon junkos, and bush tits as mostly year round residents to the usual wrens, sparrows and chickadees. I even occasionally see gold finches, kinglets and thrushes.
I love them. It’s awesome that they are in our midst (and keeping the pigeon and rodent populations down!)
A couple months ago we had a Cooper strike a pigeon right in front of our house. Dive bomb followed by a pouf of pigeon feathers. Felt badly for the pigeon, but it was cool to see it in action. We had a goldfinch this year too. First time I’ve ever seen that in the CD. So rare that for a second I thought someone’s canary had escaped.
OMG, a large hawk was just perching on by back porch right outside the window. Glad the bunny and chickens are locked up! No free breakfast!
My video on youtube, just south of I-90 on Lake Washington Boulevard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNN0g4BZ8dE