Thursday, July 29, 2010

Nature's Air Patrol over St John Hospital

Red-tailed hawks are opportunist hunters, usually living at the edge of a woodland. But they are well adapted to living on the fringes of and sometimes within the city.  Most of their diet consists of small mammals: Rabbits, mice, meadow voles and squirrels are all favorites.
But sometimes when opportunity presents they will hunt and capture slower moving birds. Such is the case of the pair of red-tails that has taken to air patrols over the parking lot and adjacent grassy areas of St John Macomb-Oakland Hospital in the highly urbanized SE corner of Oakland County. The pair perches - and waits - on the antenna on the roof and the security observation globe on the 7th floor roof.  Pigeons, that used to perch on the lower level roof are strangely absent. 

2 Comments:

Anonymous Lino Kosters said...

Being the territorial creatures that they are, huh. They just come hanging out up in the roof and consider the turf as theirs. Residents waking up to the sight of a bird's nest perched on their roofs are uncommon, but this one is a bit more interesting. Ah well, as long as they don't chip that antenna or any of the roofs there, I guess it's fine.

August 31, 2011 at 1:20 PM 
Blogger Jonathan Schechter said...

Lino, thanks for your post. And they are back again this year~!

August 31, 2011 at 2:42 PM 

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