The Brooklyn Unnaturalist

Here on the top floor of our building, located on the second-largest hill in Brooklyn, we are privileged to be able to get a close-hand look at a number of different types of hawks.

When we first moved here, I was startled by a screaming sound just outside the bedroom window. It was the shrill squawk made by many infants of many different species. When I went to the window, there on a standpipe, possibly 3-feet away, was a young fledging red-tailed hawk, bawling in complaint.

It was not at all what I had expected to find. And apparently the hawk had not expected to find a person looking at it from so close up. It was big enough to fly, and I suspected the nest that it came from was nearby, one flight up on the building’s roof.

There were always hawks flying around up here, of different sorts, but most frequently the red-tailed. I only saw one, but this year the pair—if they are always the same birds—is very much a team.

A few weeks ago, we saw one perched on the railing at the far end of the terrace, and the mate a slight bit lower on the actual parapet. They could not have been standing much closer to one another. The other day I heard a shrill keening.

I should have known better, but I raced out the terrace door, followed by my pack of eight poodles, some of whom weigh as little as 3 pounds. The noise was one of the hawks, the shrill, keening whistle signaling a dive with outstretched talons onto its prey.

This time, however, the male and female were flying very close together and very near the terrace. I don’t think I have ever been jealous of another species, but what they were doing—catching the currents and drifting in a widening circle around

each other—looked to be more fun than anything I had ever experienced. Not only could they fly and not exert much energy, they were predator rather than prey, and they had each other. The shrill keening call that one made as it wheeled in the sky was (perhaps) not an attack cry but something else— signaling pleasure.

In any event, the dogs were frantic. “Run!” I shouted at them. “Quick, get inside!” The pooches paid me no mind. Finally I was able to herd them inside. Unlike a rabbit or a squirrel or rat that would have known at the cry to run in terror and hide, the dogs were oblivious to any danger and seemed to think if one of the birds landed they would win a fight.

I don’t know if in Manhattan there have ever been any incidents: Yorkshire terriers or Malteses or other small breeds snatched up and fed to babies newly hatched in the nest. I knew it could happen in the country. But there most people do not have 3-pound poodles for the taking.

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Have your own dog-snatch story? Email [theunnaturalist@nypress.com](mailto:theunnaturalist@nypress.com). ------ “We have nature here, we have wildlife, it is just that we look at it and treat it differently,” explains Tama Janowitz. “The island that we are on—the buildings and roads—are built over what was all once a natural environment. Now it is about as unnatural as you can get.” And so begins Janowitz first in a series of columns, “The Brooklyn Unnaturalist,” that will explore “nature” in New York and how we interface with it and what it means to our daily lives. Janowitz has lived in Prospect Heights for the past 12 years with her husband and teenage daughter. She currently has eight poodles. She is the author of Slaves of New York and [Peyton Amberg] (2003). Her most recent book, [They Is Us: A Cautionary Horror Story](http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/119883-they-is-us-a-cautionary-horror-story-by-tama-janowitz/), was published last year in the U.K. and is available at St. Marks in the East Village.