Manhattan Wildlife

Let's be honest; when you think of going somewhere to see wildlife in its natural habitat, the first place you think of is NYC.  Right?

Oh, c'mon!  Sure you do.  We have rats the size of armadillos.  And they carry Mac-10's.  For every froo-froo, yappy lap dog, there are 37.6 pit bulls who have been released into the wilds by someone who had no idea they could be moody.*  There are hoardes of mutant feral cats roaming the streets.**  At least once a year, there's a news story about all the wild raccoons in the city.  I'm not sure anyone has ever actually seen one but knocked-over garbage cans are all the proof anybody needs.

Anyway, I was out roaming the East Village yesterday in search of a certain building type and happened to wander by The NYC Marble Cemetery. This is a cemetery that was active (as in digging holes and filling them) from 1831 to 1937.  Now it's a historic site.

Anyway, I was kinda glancing into the place as I walked past, and the last thought that was running through my head was, "Oooh, I should pay close attention in case there's any of nature's majesty to be witnessed here on East 2nd Street".  In fact, what I was thinking was, "Damn, my feet hurt.  I wonder if I can make it to the subway before the rush-hour crowd gets there."

As I passed the gate, some movement in a tree caught my eye.  It's not every day I see a red-tailed hawk enjoying some fresh pigeon tartare!

I popped off about 150 frames of the guy (or girl...I have no idea how to tell the difference). If you look close, you can see that his (or her) leg is banded, so somebody's got this bird in their records.  When I get a chance to go through the rest of the shots, I'll add some more.  I'm pretty sure I've got a couple of shots where Mr. Hawk was staring straight at me as if to say, "What the fuck are you looking at", in perfect NY fashion.
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*Not really.  I totally made that up.

**Really.  I totally didn't make that up.