Re: Predatory dinosaurs of Baltimore - the real raptor red

[Michael Habib <habib@jhmi.edu>]

There has been a red tail hawk hunting in around Druid Hill Park from 
some years now; it used to roost by the Reptile House (when it was 
open) and was not at all concerned with human presence (it showed up as 
a first year and stuck around for a few more).

Sounds like the next generation has moved in, I will be interested to 
see if it remains in the area.  There is a Coopers Hawk hunting 
regularly in the Charles Village area as well.

On a note of more general interest (for the non-Baltimoreans) I have 
seen more raptors (species and numbers) in urban settings in the last 
year than any year previous.

--Mike Habib

On Tuesday, February 15, 2005, at 04:00 PM, GSP1954@aol.com wrote:

> Today was unusually mild, so took a walk through the big, Olmstead 
> designed
> Druid Hill Park around the Baltimore Zoo. Had just passed the zoo 
> entrance and
> was in an open area with rowhouses across a main city route about 100 
> yards
> away. Saw a large bird flopping on the ground. Too big to be a pigeon 
> and too
> brown to be a crow. It was a hawk that had just caught a squirrel. I 
> stood about
> 40 ft away, the hawk barely paid attention to the clumsy bipedal one. 
> For
> about 10 minutes it continued to beat the rodent to death, its wings 
> spread out
> on the ground classic raptor style. It then dragged the corpse a few 
> feet to
> the base of a sappling and started to feed. Even when I walked by 
> about 30 ft
> away the hawk hardly paid me attention. Watched for at least 20 mins 
> overall,
> left the predator to finish its afternoon dinner in peace.
>
> Not sure what kind of hawk it was. It was fairly large, the size of a 
> big
> crow. Maybe too big for a pigeon hawk, have seen one around here for 
> years. A
> dull brown uppersides, off white underneath. Wonder if it was a fully 
> grown
> juvenile.
>
> G Paul