On Durant Avenue, a couple blocks west of Telegraph, about an hour before dark. I happened to look up and see a large-ish gray bird sitting on a telephone wire, facing the other way. Pigeon. Pigeon? Maybe too big for that. Looking a little harder, it looked like a little hawk. I crossed the street and looked up. Its chest was reddish, and it had a little slate-colored cap: either a sharp-shinned or a Cooper’s hawk. Cooper’s hawks we’ve had in our neighborhood before: One caught a morning dove in our backyard once; and another time, we were walking up to a nearby restaurant when we noticed feathers floating down from the top of a telephone pole: a Cooper’s hawk taking apart its own evening repast (mourning dove again). After nearly 30 years here, I’m still surprised by the wild things that set up housekeeping right here in the middle of the city.
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