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Hawks Downtown?


ricco67

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Yesterday I was over at One Shell Plaza listening to a client.

That's when I saw my nemiseseseses take to flight. The dreaded Grackles. I wished death to them. Each and every single one of them.

Did I mention I hate Grackles? anyway....

As I was focusing my hate on drakes and listening to my client drone on about the same subject for the 5th time, I saw a blurr and a puff of feathers.

I THOUGHT i saw a hawk take down one of those black flying rats, but it all passed my view. :(

Do we have hawks downtown now?

Edit: Editing stupidity.

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Anything is possible in Houston. Remember the topic I think you created a few months ago about seeing brightly colored parrots fly across the 59 frwy?

This reminds me of the scene in the older Batman films where the Penguins were carrying dynamite on their backs going in for the kill. Now let's hope we dont see any prehistoric birds buzzing around. Wouldn't mind having a DoDo bird for a pet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo.

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Probably a stupid question, but what is a drake and why do you hate them?

Actually, I meant "Grackles" I don't like drakes either, but I DESPISE Grackles.

They're loud, they're ugly, and there are way too many of them!

blackbird.jpg

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I was at a restaraunt in Houston a few years back sitting on the patio when a huge hawk swooped down and attacked a pigeon q few yards away. He squeezed the pigeon to death with his talons while eveyone on the patio watched in horror.

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I was at a restaraunt in Houston a few years back sitting on the patio when a huge hawk swooped down and attacked a pigeon q few yards away. He squeezed the pigeon to death with his talons while eveyone on the patio watched in horror.

That must have been outrageously funny! Could have Youtubed it?

Now I cant stop thinking of the Edgar Allen Poe "The Raven" story. Never more! :lol:

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I was at a restaraunt in Houston a few years back sitting on the patio when a huge hawk swooped down and attacked a pigeon q few yards away. He squeezed the pigeon to death with his talons while eveyone on the patio watched in horror.

HORROR ? That would have been AWESOME to witness, nature at it's finest. Talk about rats with wings, pigeons out number humans 9 to 1!

Yes, I do believe there are redtail hawks downtown, grackles gotta fly, hawks gotta eat. Now, a very unusual site you may want to check out is the enormous turkey buzzard sanctuary over in the energy corridor buildings of hwy.6 and I-10. About 50 to 70 buzzards flying around towards dusk most nights and occasionally during the day.

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There are a couple of red-tail hawks that roost on my building (the AIG tower). I looked up one day and one was right on the ledge outside my office. Beautiful creatures. I've seen the same one a few times; he probably snatches a lot of food from the banks of the bayou. I see hawks circling above it all the time.

Back in my old neighborhood in San Antonio, I'd see turkey vultures in the middle of residential streets when there was fesh roadkill.

Grackles. ugh.

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Actually, I meant "Grackles" I don't like drakes either, but I DESPISE Grackles.

A drake is a male duck. You don't like male ducks? Do you like the female ones? They kind of go together, I think.

A few weeks ago I saw a vulture eating a squirrel in the middle of a road near 59 in Sugar Land. That was cool. When cars came close he didn't move, he just flashed that "f-you, my squirrel" stare.

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We've had red-shouldered hawks nesting in the trees two doors down from me for at the least the 5 years that I've lived in South Union. (I only know them as red-shouldered hawks because my bird-watcher friend identified them for me...along with the yellow-crested night herons that feed in our roadside ditches).

We hear the hawks soaring overhead and calling each other every spring.

I also see hawks very frequently on the light standards on the Westpark Tollway, and I've seen them on the Katy Freeway. I also saw one attack a bird at the end of the street I work on in Westchase. The bird dropped off the roof of a 3-story building at the end of the street.

We also watched a hawk getting harrassed and chased off the roof of the one-story office building next door by two mockingbirds a year or two ago. The damn hawk ended up perched on the roof of the pickup truck of one of my co-workers. I was amazed that the hawk couldn't take care of the mockingbirds, but my friend explained to me that while hawks are deadly in the air, they're pretty defenseless while standing still on a roof. The smaller mockingbirds were much more nimble than the big powerful hawk.

All the being said, DON'T MESS WITH THE GRACKLE!!! The grackle is your friend. There's nothing finer than the mating song and dance of the grackle! kkkk-kkkkkkkkhhhhh-kkkkkkkhhhhhhh!!! (my phonetic spelling of the grackle-call).

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Grackles are my new favorite bird.

I saw a hawk the other day in Hermann Park eating a pigeon on the side walk on my way to Rice. He just sort of turned his head and watched me as I rode by on my bike, but he wasn't afraid of me and I came pretty close!

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300633254_9b6b1bcc2f_b.jpg

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On the topic of bird behavior, when I go down to visit my parents in their Galveston loft, the seagulls fly in to the old downtown area each morning, they lounge about, squawk amongst each other, and then all at once quiet down and as if on cue fly away. They disperse in different directions. Some go to the bay, some to the gulf, others traversing the coast in one direction or the other. Its fascinating to watch.

Apparently a good place to watch gulls be gulls is the dog track in La Marque, especially following a heavy downpour. Given the proper conditions, there can be up to a quarter million gulls roosting there in any one morning.

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On the topic of bird behavior, when I go down to visit my parents in their Galveston loft, the seagulls fly in to the old downtown area each morning, they lounge about, squawk amongst each other, and then all at once quiet down and as if on cue fly away. They disperse in different directions. Some go to the bay, some to the gulf, others traversing the coast in one direction or the other. Its fascinating to watch.

Apparently a good place to watch gulls be gulls is the dog track in La Marque, especially following a heavy downpour. Given the proper conditions, there can be up to a quarter million gulls roosting there in any one morning.

How far inland do gulls typically go? I saw one flying over a parking lot in Conroe the other day.

Grackles are my new favorite bird.

842434185_830256d57d_b.jpg

That gull looks like "dang loud city grackles, with their blankets and stuff ruining my beach walk path!"

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For an inner-loop neighborhood close to downtown, Broadmoor has a large variety of birds. There's a medium sized hawk that often flies over the area, but I haven't been able to identify it. A frequent visitor to my yard at night is a screech owl - a shame that it's too small to capture the rats running on the power lines in the utility easement. Grackles moved in last summer, chasing away mockingbirds and cardinals until the nesting season was over. Whitewing doves co-exist with pigeons and are so numerous that the semi-feral cats around here don't go hungry.

It seems that the gulls fly in most often when it's foggy or when there's a strong wind from the south or southeast.

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I park on the roof of a low-rise downtown and a couple of months ago there was a peregrine falcon up there tearing a pigeon to pieces, not five feet from my front tire. Raptors and other birds of prey tend not to be willing to leave their meals behind, so he just kind of eyed me while I was up there -- didn't fly away even when I was just a couple of feet away. I wish I had a camera with me.

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300633254_9b6b1bcc2f_b.jpg

My wife hates these critters, too. We always called them "gas station birds" because in the Summer they'd always run under your car to slurp up the condensation from the AC.

I used to live in an apartment that faced the top of a skyscraper that had the last three floors taper inward. It was also one of the favorite lunch spots for one of the local falcons. Every week or so he'd bring a fresh pigeon up to the peak of the glass and tear it to bits. The office workers would all stare up through the glass as the falcon tore all the feathers off the pigeon in a huge flurry of fluffy bits. It was like it was snowing feathers.

Then he'd chow down.

After a little while he'd stop eating and sit there for a bit and then the most incredibly long white trails of bird poop would run down the glass and all the office workers would run away.

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I used to live in an apartment that faced the top of a skyscraper that had the last three floors taper inward. It was also one of the favorite lunch spots for one of the local falcons. Every week or so he'd bring a fresh pigeon up to the peak of the glass and tear it to bits. The office workers would all stare up through the glass as the falcon tore all the feathers off the pigeon in a huge flurry of fluffy bits. It was like it was snowing feathers.

Then he'd chow down.

After a little while he'd stop eating and sit there for a bit and then the most incredibly long white trails of bird poop would run down the glass and all the office workers would run away.

I love that story.

My favorite bird story comes from the Great Leap Forward in China. The party decided that birds were eating too much of the agricultural output, so they told all the citizens to kill birds. People were told to kill them by any means available, including banging pans day and night to scare the birds out of landing and eventually dying of exhaustion.

It worked. The Chinese people killed off most of the birds. Then the crops were ravaged by insects the birds would have eaten. Millions starved to death.

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Try this one day when you go to the beach.

When I had an older car we used to park on East Beach and have bread or crackers ready. Me and the kiddies stayed in the car and rolled down the windows enough to toss out crumbs on the roof.

About 300 or so gulls would start attacking the car and hitting the roof to get the food! It was so cool! From a distance people were staring at us and thought they were attacking us. Cheap thrills but fun stuff. I should have filmed it. No Youtube then. Now I want to go try it again! We could have some dummies that resemble Tippi and Mrs Bundy and have them cover them. Add ketchup, etc. :lol:

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Try this one day when you go to the beach.

When I had an older car we used to park on East Beach and have bread or crackers ready. Me and the kiddies stayed in the car and rolled down the windows enough to toss out crumbs on the roof.

About 300 or so gulls would start attacking the car and hitting the roof to get the food! It was so cool! From a distance people were staring at us and thought they were attacking us. Cheap thrills but fun stuff. I should have filmed it. No Youtube then. Now I want to go try it again! We could have some dummies that resemble Tippi and Mrs Bundy and have them cover them. Add ketchup, etc. :lol:

We did something similar to this when I was in high school. One warm summer day we went to Great Adventure (sister park of the late Astroworld). In the parking lot we pulled in next to a bitchin' Camaro (this would have been the mid-80's) and it had one of those proximity sensors that called out, "Warning! This car is protected by Viper! Stand away from the car!"

So we covered the roof with Wheat Thins and other crunchables we were consuming on the way to the park. The gulls came along and kept that warning repeating long after we were out of earshot.

Hopefully they pooped on the car, too.

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As a youth, we had a similar game we played with Gulls down in Galveston, the ol' Alka Seltzer trick !

NAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH !!!! Just Kidding !!! I never did that, I have thought about it, but never would intentionally hurt animals. You PeTA people can stop calling 911 now.

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