Bloomberg: Crime Stat Manipulations are "Tiny"
Palin: "Absurd" Not To Consider 2012 Run
School Already Canceled Tomorrow for Snowpocalypse!
Wall Street Throwing More Money at Republicans
More Bald Eagles Spotted In Harlem!
We suppose that even hawks get tired of killing their prey—yesterday, D. Billy at And I Am Not Lying wrote that he had a good lunch, "Well… there was this one part where A F***ING HAWK FLEW INTO THE RESTAURANT WHERE I WAS EATING, AND LANDED ON MY FOOD." What follows is an endearing story of shock and awe:
I was sitting at a window seat next to the open door, and my food had just been brought out. I looked down to see this guy (or gal - I don’t know hawks) just standing in the doorway, looking back and forth. After surveying the place for a few seconds, it flapped its way in and up onto one of the empty tables.The guy working the counter came out, and we were both (slowly and carefully) snapping pictures with our phones. The hawk didn’t react to us apart from turning his head to look back and forth between us — even when said employee said:
“Man, you inna wrong place, bird! Dontchu know this a chicken joint?”
The hawk, whose talons were covered in jerk BBQ sauce while "looking all emo," eventually got spooked when a delivery guy entered and flew into the kitchen: "The counter guy, the delivery guy and I heard a few pots clanging as we debated calling animal control versus just trying to shoo it back out the door, when one of the cooks who was back there caught the hawk with his bare hands, and walked it back outside." Awesome. More awesome: It happened at Birdie's.
There are plenty of hawks and falcons in the city—they help keep the rat population down. A few years ago, Bryant Park put its hawk program (with hawks used to seek rats) on ice because hawks were attacking rat-like dogs.
Update: Here are some pictures of red-tailed hawks in Riverside Park, where, unfortunately, there was no chicken in jerk BBQ sauce.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
He's lucky he made it out of there alive. Not the hawk, the guy eating the food.
Holy crap, that hawk v rat-dog story is 6 years old already!
From the feathers, it's a "teenage," not quite grown-up hawk. Goes with the whole East Village- emo vibe.
Awesome story. The cook's comments remind me of Tracy Jordan addressing the pigeon eating fries out of the trash can:
"Hey pigeon, eating other peoples' garbage. Have a little self-respect. Don't you know you can fly?"
Thank you for reminding me of that Tracy Jordan bit.
Hawk's lucky they didn't cook it, given what happens to cats.
I love the image of hawks flying off with rat-like dogs. It's like in a Harryhausen film.
this made my day.
*gasp* eating chicken? the hawk was not vegan! animals are so un-p.c.
No surprise it was eating chicken. Hawks eat other birds all the time, it's part of their regular diet. Not cooked with BBQ sauce though.
Of course, now that this one hawk has experienced the goodness that is jerk BBQ sauce, who knows how many more will come looking for it?
Pity there's no video to put on YouTube. They'd be able to add a voiceover with that clipped, high-pitched voice, "You're a chicken and I'm a chickenhawk!"
Raptors completely acclimated to humans and city life and, like bears, may have even acquired a taste for cooked food. Immature and probably very hungry.
I hope we don't come to a point where people go from door to door asking if their neighbors have a pair of falconer's gloves to shoo off the raptor that got in their house.
Amazing story though.
Actually, that's the waiter.
It even left a tip!
I can haz your fucking eyeballs, mammal!
I was just hawking down some BBQ....
If only Canadian Geese came in BBQ flavor.
The hawk was still bummed that it couldn't use the KFC coupon for 2 free pieces of chicken.
that was the Bud light raptor...he was just stopping by for Buffalo wings
That's a juvenile red-tailed hawk, like Pale Male. There's one in Central Park that keeps crashing into things, so this may be him - he's pretty bedraggled.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/181/470405874_200d003c73.jpg