The Bird of Prey in The Bronx

Sometimes living in a large Urban area, I forget how close we still are to nature. I was walking to get some groceries when I came across a man looking into a tree in front of my kids school. He tells me in spanish that the bird was beautiful. As I look closer, I notice that it was a bird of prey of some type. I'm not sure whether it was a hawk or falcon but it was beautiful, majestic and apparently hungry.

In my neighborhood, especially near my kids school, there are many squirrels. Now anyone that knows me knows that I love squirrels. So I somewhat felt bad when I saw the bird was trying to catch one of the squirrels. I would never interfere with nature. As bad as I would feel if the bird nabbed a squirrel, its what would happen in the wild. Luckily for the little guys, each time the bird jumped to a branch to nab himself a little morsel, the slick squirrels dodged and weaved their way from harm's way.

I also noted that the many seagulls and pigeons that we have were circling the air above where the bird was. I guess they realized that danger was around. Here's where the story gets interesting. I see this big crow fly to the top of an adjacent tree and starts to squawk and caw. As he does so, he dives head first towards the bird of prey, chasing it away over the school. I always told me wife that crows had were cool and have character. I got to see nature and didn't even have to leave my neighborhood. How about that.