Thursday, May 18, 2017

Planet Earth Come to Todi

There I was, minding my own business, when two pigeons burst into the living room through the open french doors. Hm. Strange. They did seem rather in a panic, but I was busy, so didn't think much of it. It was a first for pigeons, but we have had bats and swifts, so whatever.

Until. Until, that is, Florence went into the kitchen, looked out the french door, and said, "Hey! There's a hawk out there!" It wasn't "out there" in the sense of floating around in the general vicinity. Nope. It was "out there" in the sense of being on the satellite dish that is right next to the balcony.

Turns out, there was another pigeon in the boys' room, also driven to escape.

That alone would have been cool.

But there was more in store for us: As I was standing in the boys' room looking out, the falcon descended onto the balcony, out of sight of the living room. A pigeon took advantage of his perceived opportunity to escape and also landed on the balcony. A hop, skip, and jump, and that pigeon was done for.

The kids all piled onto the balcony (except Ashley, who declared, "That is gross" and disappeared) to watch the entire meal. After about an hour, there was nothing left but a few blood spatters, a pillow's worth of feathers, and a memory.


There was a problem, though: the hawk was now full. Meaning heavy. Meaning that taking off was no longer child's play. The difficulty was that we were watching it, and it was not a happy camper. A few tentative goes and it was clear that leaving wasn't much of an option. It waited. We waited. It *ahem* lightened its load a few times.

After 30 minutes or more of suspense, it half flew, half clambered up the netting on the balcony and ended in the flowerpots. I suspect those plants are not very happy right about now. Anyway, it sat there for another little while, then crossed its fingers and hoped for the best, and...took off...tried to grab the wall of the courtyard...and ended up crash landing in the plants on the ground in the opposite corner. Not impressive flying, ace.

This poor bird then proceeded to hop up the steps, and eventually ended up in an outside windowsill on the second-floor landing. By then it was dusk, so its chance of flying was over for the day. After much research and consultation, we have concluded it is a peregrine falcon.

(And, yes, we gave it a wide berth when we went for gelato later).

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