CSI: Wessyngton Road

I think Iain was the first one who noticed them. In the afternoon, we'd see them under the birdfeeders in the back yard - they weren't full grown, and Sarah thought they were cute, but they were absolutely and definitely rats. Fortunately when startled they ran away from the house, toward the wooded area behind the fence, so we didn't think they were actually living in our house. Still, it's not exactly the kind of wildlife you like to see in your backyard, snacking the sunflower seeds that fall from your birdfeeders. The squirrels are bad enough.

But that was a few weeks ago. I haven't seen them for a while. Maybe I just haven't looked at the right time of day.

Then, yesterday afternoon, Iain and I found some clues in the back yard:



Exhibit A.



Exhibit B.

This afternoon we found gray feathers scattered over a large area in the back yard - clumps of feathers (Exhibit A) or individual feathers, of all kinds (Exhibit B). The bird to whom these feathers had been attached had almost certainly been eaten by something - but what? My first thought was a cat. Cats are very effective predators, and a cat certainly could have staked out the bird feeder; Dan used to complain to us when our cat, Rocky, used to stake out their bird feeder. But I don't think I've seen a cat in our back yard since before Rocky died; the very large Labrador retriever who usually is asleep somewhere in the yard may have something to do with the absence of cats in our yard (it certainly kept Rocky away, and he nominally lived here). So, we didn't think it was a cat.

The fact that the feathers were scattered over such a large area suggested at least to me that it was a hawk. A week or two ago Iain and I were walking back from the farmer's market and he spotted one, soaring over the back yards on our side of Wessyngton Road. I've looked, since, and I haven't seen one, but I think at least yesterday it was dining high above my back yard. (I hope that the meal wasn't the catbird I saw at the bird bath the other day.)

In May and June, I watched the red-tailed hawk family in the nest outside the NYU president's office. I started watching soon after the unexpected hatching of Pip (it had been too long, the experts said, none of the eggs are going to hatch), and got anxious when she started wandering around the nest, especially when her mother was out hunting (the experts said she wouldn't fall out, but they were the same ones who said none of the eggs were going to hatch), and then when she finally flew away. But while she was there, we would see her parents would return from hunting with tasty rats, squirrels, and the occasional bird.

I don't know much about hawks - I know that many of the hawks in this area are red-tailed hawks, but I don't know if there are other species too. But I love the idea of a hawk patrolling the neighborhood and dining on rats. For what it's worth, I haven't seen the rats at the bird feeder in a while. I really hope they were lunch. Or maybe dinner, or breakfast.

And I'll keep looking up, to see what I can see.