Day By Day

Monday, January 07, 2008

Hunting in Center City Philly

"She Who Must Not Be Named" and I have been hanging out in Center City Philly recently. I was down there to present a paper at an academic conference. She just tagged along. Yesterday, during a break in the conference I took a stroll through the historical district, and this is what I saw.



Ain't he a beaut? The biggest, fattest red-tailed hawk I've seen in a long time. Right across the street from the Omni. Hunting must be good downtown -- pigeons, squirrels, small yappy dogs....

While we watched, something caught his attention.



And he launched himself at a squirrel in a nearby tree.


The squirrel was lucky -- the hawk missed, just barely. But there will be other opportunities, other squirrels, a fat pigeon perhaps, and if he's lucky, a small tourist....