In the Outdoors: Winged drama over a parking lot

Pigeons and hawks have both adapted to “downtown” living

Story and photos by Oak Duke

The tight flock of pigeons caught my eye as I turned off the ignition in the grocery store parking lot.

These birds were not out for mere exercise… or food but fleeing for their lives.

I had raised pigeons as a boy and could tell by their speeding body language that a hawk was in hot pursuit.

The flock dipped quickly as one, heading over the river. But one bird broke away.

Big mistake.

A Cooper’s hawk, a very quick flyer and faster for short distances than any pigeon, quickly intercepted the dove, grabbed it with its talons and with widespread wings, floated down with its prey, landing in the middle of the parking lot.

A stooped-over old man with a blue coat, exited his truck, walked a few feet from the glaring, spread-winged hawk. Never noticed it. And shuffled into the store.

Another shopper with a full grocery cart pushed past the crouching bird of prey, never saw it, opened her trunk and began loading groceries.

My boyhood pigeons were fast.

They were not the common pigeons we see strutting on sidewalks downtown, but carefully bred athletes.

They were racing pigeons, competitors, Denmark racers to be exact.

My birds came from Reynold Danielson of Scio, who was among other things, a very successful pigeon racer and more often than not, won big races against the best pigeon fanciers in Buffalo and Rochester.

He took me to a few races in Buffalo, and as a wide-eyed boy, visited the Racing Pigeon club members and their lofts as Mr. Danielson delivered his time-clock with its pigeon bands, proof of his bird’s successful flights…sometimes from as far away as Cleveland, Toledo, and even Chicago! And pocket a big roll of cash in his cavernous overhauls.

 But one day, after school, as my birds were stretching their wings in typical flight formation, they also performed the telltale dives exactly as the flock did over the parking lot… so many years later.

Yes, my birds were fast, but not fast enough for a goshawk, the Cooper’s hawk bigger cousin.

I walked up to that large gray-flecked bird with ruby red, piercing eyes. And only when my mother came out of the house screaming at the hawk, swinging a broom, did the big bird fly off, leaving the dead, brown crumpled pigeon.

I would have flown off too!

My mother, with her flashing dark eyes that rivaled the hawk, had seen the entire tragedy as she enjoyed watching my birds fly around the houses here in town, then when I whistled, they all flew in to get fed and be shut up, roosting for the long winter night.

After that, I had to have a hawk, read everything I could at the library on falconry and hawks and dreamed someday of having my own hawks.

Today, of course, New York state offers falconry licenses and people keep, feed, take care of, and fly hawks and falcons (they are slightly different species.)

But when I had hawks it was many years before falconry licenses were available or even thought of.

And my buddies called my mom, “the hawk lady” as she proudly carried these large raptors around the house and outdoors on her gloved arm.

Actually, goshawks, back then, had a bounty in Pennsylvania at the time. People were paid money to shoot them, believing that they were the “chicken hawk.” We’ve come a long ways since those times. Now it’s a serious violation of the law to shoot a hawk of any kind.

 But I digress…

Back to the avian drama in the parking lot…

I carefully exited my truck and with my phone, thought I could once again, get close and snap a photo or two.

But…

One of the shoppers drove past and when the hawk saw a white SUV bearing down on it, let go its grasp.

The pigeon, seemingly unhurt, darted for the grocery store sign, and actually in flight, wedged itself somehow behind it and out of reach.

The stoic hawk spread its large wings quickly disappearing.

One more quick vignette:

Last winter I stopped traffic around the corner from the Catholic Church, put my flashers on in the middle of the road when another Cooper’s hawk had caught a pigeon and landed in the center of the blacktop near a manhole cover.

I was worried an unthinking or uncaring driver might hit the hawk and its prize.

This time I was successful in snapping a few photos and shooing the bird, who would not let go of his catch, over to the side of the road on a lawn, next to a sidewalk out of harm’s way.