This hawk had killed a pigeon(?) and brought it to this tree on the corner of a suburban block to eat it

It turns out the crows *had* been trying to scare off a hawk that had killed a pigeon and settled into the tree to eat it. At first I could only see the occasional feather raining down, until I moved to where I could see through a gap in the branches.

The hawk was huge. It’s probably one of the hawks that I see around regularly, but most of the time they’re up in the sky or perched high enough I don’t have any sense of their scale.

#photo #birds #hawk #nature #BirdOfPrey

A hawk with light brown underside and darker brown wings, perched on a thick tree limb with branches and pine needles behind it, holding the remains of a smaller (dead) bird to the trunk with its claws, leaning over with its hooked beak.

The same hawk from another angle, looking up from its meal in the direction of the camera. Two cables run across the frame, not quite blocking the view.

On Photog.Social

This was just on the corner of a block in the suburbs. People were still out watching (and the crows hadn’t returned) when I decided to continue on my walk.

Usually I see the red-tailed hawks out by the nearest school field or the greenbelt by the power transmission lines, and I only see the smaller cooper’s hawks along the residential streets.

On Photog.Social
Cross-posted on K2R
Link on Twitter

This hawk had killed a pigeon(?) and brought it to this tree on the corner of a suburban block to eat it. People were standing out in their front yards watching it. Feathers were dropping as it ate.

It’s probably one of the same hawks I see in the area from time to time, but it looked huge. Though that could just be from it being a lot closer to the ground than I usually see them!

On iNaturalist