I saw the most amazing thing just now. I was at Rittenhouse Square Park, where I go every Saturday to pick up my box of veggies from Spiral Path Farm. J and I were chillin’ on a bench, drinking large cups of apple cider and enjoying the unusually warm late-October day, when all of a sudden a huge bird flew right over our heads and up into the tree behind us.

I was amazed by how unafraid of people the bird was — a true city dweller, s/he was obviously used to activity and noise. It stayed perched in a branch of that tree for a good five minutes, and let J and I come up right underneath it. He tried to get some pictures on his camera phone, but you couldn’t really see the bird on them. We knew that it was some kind of raptor, because it had the hooked beak and it was so big. (We also saw it going for a squirrel, later on.) We decided it was either a falcon or a hawk. (Neither J nor I is incredibly good at plant and animal identification, although I’m trying to get better.)

After I got home and did some research, we decided it was probably a Red-Tailed Hawk. How exciting! There are several known groups of Red-Tails living in NYC, including the famous Central Park clan, but I couldn’t find any mentions of Red-Tails in Philadelphia. Perhaps they are starting to move in to my city? I hope so, that would be awesome. (We certainly have plenty of pigeons for them to eat.)

So today I got to stare at a Red-Tailed Hawk in the middle of the city. That totally made my day.