Red-tailed hawks

[Antonia Zerbisias]

Two weeks ago, I was in my doctor's office at Pape& Danforth, where, from her fourth-floor window, I spotted a few hawks circling somewhere northwest of us. Maybe it was in the Carlaw-Browning area? Then we saw a few more fly in from the east. Then a few more. Then more. And more again. We lost count at 50. They circled for about 20 minutes and then dispersed.
It was quite a sight.
Our thought at the time was maybe they were migrating but now I am not so sure. I believe that some habitat of theirs had been bulldozed/destroyed and they were freaking out.
The reason for this is that, ever since, I have seen way way more than usual hanging around, soaring and dive-bombing over parks, schoolyards and other open-spaces.
Ever since I moved to Riverdale in 1985, I have seen many over the years, even sitting on my garage roof, but nothing like this. Lately I have spotted many squirrel corpses on the ground, picked clean, and not by dogs or raccoons.
Yesterday afternoon I spotted one sitting on a school roof watching the children play. These hawks are quite large and they seem to be losing their fear of humans.
Yesterday evening, around 6, I walked out my door with my dog and was absolutely stunned to see one on the ground in front of the school, calmly and boldly tearing apart a squirrel. All my neighbours came out to take pictures and that bird totally ignored us until it had done its thing, pooped and took off.
I don't have a cat but, if I did, I would not be letting it out during the day.

[Michael Cayley]

Thanks for this and for attaching the photo, you might want upload the photo so that it will be shared more widely?

Cheers, mc

[Angus Cunningham]

How disturbing, Antonia!

If you watched the CBC's Doc Zone recently you might have wondered where all the human testosterone is going to be produced in the future. The presentation was about the rapid and significant decline in "normal" size of testes and sperm counts in human males, sperm counts in adult males now being a fraction of what they have historically been and the testes of baby boys appearing much smaller at birth.

One expert said this "testosterone deficiency" is the first sign of species extinction, but I wondered if it might also be the reason why, on a per capita basis, intra-human violence worldwide is actually (and surprisingly if one pays attention to the news media) going down, although the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq interrupted the decline temporarily. The main points I personally got out of the documentary were (1) don't eat packaged food; (2) look for and prefer natural healing means over packaged prescriptions; and (3) read up on the human immune system. You post makes me wonder if the testes and sperm counts of male hawks might be going up!

[Diane Dyson]

I saw a hawk today, looking out my office window, at Jones and Danforth. I am going to keep a sharper eye now!

[Diane Dyson]

So I kept a sharper eye and had a National Geographic moment.

My 3rd floor office looks out over nearby rooftops. Last Friday, I spent two hours peeking out my window, watching a hawk consume the carcass of another bird. It was perched not more than 3 metres from my window.

Office mates visited regularly through the afternoon to watch. Amazing.