As I parked my car on Waveland today, between Greenview and Jenssen, in my periphery vision, I noted something dark-colored rapidly hurtling out of the sky and then hitting the sidewalk in an explosive white poof.
Wtf?
For the life of me, I thought that maybe someone had violently thrown a brown feather pillow or a box of styrofoam peanuts out an upper-story window.
But looking out the passenger window, I realized that the dark object was a small brown bird of prey - later identified as a peregrine falcon - sitting atop a large, puffy white feathery thing, presumably a pigeon, surrounded by at least a couple dozen white feathers of all sizes.
As the feathers skittered and danced upon the ground, and the peregrine moved back and forth on its feet, kneading the pigeon upon which it sat with its talons - much like a cat on your tummy, it occurred to me that this might be the time for a fabulous photo op.
Unfortunately, my windows were so dirty that I couldn't really clearly make out the pile of bird through the lens, at least well enough to identify it as anything beyond a blur through a dirty, sun-stricken window.
And then as quickly as it had fallen to earth, the peregrine exploded upwards into the sky, trailing white feathers like a vapor trail.
Looking a little confused, the pigeon then suddenly popped up, and fluttered a bit unsteadily on the ground, before launching itself into the air, also trailing white feathers like a vapor trail.
Then the two of them did a swooping little air ballet, before rocketing off in different directions.
And if Fe and Ro hadn't called off, I wouldn't have gone to work an hour earlier than normal, and I certainly wouldn't have seen that.
Wtf?
For the life of me, I thought that maybe someone had violently thrown a brown feather pillow or a box of styrofoam peanuts out an upper-story window.
But looking out the passenger window, I realized that the dark object was a small brown bird of prey - later identified as a peregrine falcon - sitting atop a large, puffy white feathery thing, presumably a pigeon, surrounded by at least a couple dozen white feathers of all sizes.
As the feathers skittered and danced upon the ground, and the peregrine moved back and forth on its feet, kneading the pigeon upon which it sat with its talons - much like a cat on your tummy, it occurred to me that this might be the time for a fabulous photo op.
Unfortunately, my windows were so dirty that I couldn't really clearly make out the pile of bird through the lens, at least well enough to identify it as anything beyond a blur through a dirty, sun-stricken window.
And then as quickly as it had fallen to earth, the peregrine exploded upwards into the sky, trailing white feathers like a vapor trail.
Looking a little confused, the pigeon then suddenly popped up, and fluttered a bit unsteadily on the ground, before launching itself into the air, also trailing white feathers like a vapor trail.
Then the two of them did a swooping little air ballet, before rocketing off in different directions.
And if Fe and Ro hadn't called off, I wouldn't have gone to work an hour earlier than normal, and I certainly wouldn't have seen that.
