Hawks on a Ledge

A family of red-tailed hawks have taken roost on the front ledge of a building near us, opposite the Fresh Pond Shopping Center in Cambridge. The first flight of one of the fledglings created quite a stir the other day. And the day following, I happened to be passing through the parking lot of the office building when I found a crowd of people gathered around a parked car. There, on the roof of the car, was the young hawk—peering around, probably wondering who all these yahoos were that were getting in the way of his flight training.  I snapped a few shots with my cell camera, and a few minutes later, he took wing and got himself up onto a tall CVS sign in the same lot.

They've been drawing crowds of birdwatchers from all over the area. There's a gallery of some pretty good pix on Boston.com. But—rather like my experience watching the space shuttle launch—the pictures don't compare to standing fifteen feet from the (not so) little guy, watching him try to make sense of it all. I could identify.