The Hawks Are Back

Yes, that’s right folks, the hawks are back!! I don’t know where this registers on the Bizarrometer, but your Center City Correspondent is more than slightly bemused by this story.  Mrs. CCC just thinks I'm weird to be so interested in this.


One morning about a year ago, I was walking to work and there were two guys standing on the sidewalk outside the Franklin Institute looking intently at something. As I got closer I saw a large bird of prey, a hawk, on top of the biplane model, tearing at something he (she?) had clutched in his talons. I mean, he was really ripping at it with guts all over the place. The plat du jour was pigeon (I thought that was odd because that’s exactly what I had one night in Paris, honest). A bunch of smaller birds were squawking at him; all he had to do was spread his wings and the little birds backed off. One of the bystanders told me that it was a red-tailed hawk and that a pair of them has taken up residence on the window sill on the second story of the Franklin Institute. The sill wasn’t quite big enough for their nest and it kept toppling down to the sidewalk. So some industrious people at the Institute built a platform on the window sill and replaced the nest. The adults seemed OK with the addition, and they completed their nest in time for Momma hawk to lay her eggs. About a month later the blessed event arrived and the chicks were hatched. For the first few weeks they could not leave the nest, and had to be fed by Mom and Dad. So they scoured the surrounding neighborhood for grub, and I can tell you there was not a mouse or pigeon to be seen for blocks around the Institute. For the next few weeks, as the chicks developed, they could be seen hopping around the nest or on the sill. They could not fly much, just a little flutter now and then, but as they quickly matured, they would fly and hop around the roof and ledges of the Institute. One of them tried to fly and landed in the middle of 20th Street and had to be rescued by folks from the Animal Shelter. He was back in the nest in 24 hours. After about a month, the chicks were flying around the area and at about two months old, they had flown the coop. These are impressive animals that do two things well, hunt and procreate. Their hunting technique is to sit in a tree or building scouring the landscape and when they spot prey, they do a power dive directly down, spread their wings at the last moment to stop their dive and grab the prey with their claws. Very efficient hunters and killers.

Their story was picked up by the local press, and I made it a point to hang out on the corner with a few of the Hawkaholics, and we were treated to a lot of activity almost every day. Activity in the nest was captured by a webcam that the Institute had set up and is available online at the link below.

So the adults are back and a few days ago the first egg was laid. I guess we’ll have another spring of the red-tailed hawks. So why is this bizarre? I lived in the suburbs for over 50 years and never saw a nest of hawks. I come to the city and I’m treated to a nature show, right in my own neighborhood. Weird, huh? Kudos to the Institute for the home makeover and the webcam. Check the camera over the next few weeks. Right now they’re just incubating the eggs but in a few weeks there will be hungry mouths to feed and flying and hunting lessons to be learned. Stay tuned.



http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-franklin-institute-haw-cam

Great and Glorious St. Patrick

Your Center City Correspondent begs your indulgence as he mounts his soapbox. Your CCC wants you to know that he’s a big fan of St. Patrick. Not St. Patrick’s Day, with the needless drinking and carousing, but with the saint himself. St. Patrick was born in 389 AD in England and was spirited to Ireland when he was 16. There he served as a shepherd for his pagan master’s flock, but he never forgot his Catholic faith. He escaped back to England six years later and was told in a dream to go back to Ireland and teach the faith. He entered the seminary and was ordained a priest in 417. It took until 431 for him to return to Ireland where he assisted the bishop there to expand the church. Upon the death of the bishop, he was elevated to that post. Two popes, Celestine I and Leo the Great both encouraged him to continue his work and he established monasteries all over the Emerald Isle. He died on March 17, 461 at the age of 72, quite old in those days. His legacy continues today as Irish priests and monks travel all over the world preaching the faith to millions.


One priest at the Cathedral is from Nigeria and he told us today that he was taught the faith by Irish priests and that they had a great influence on his country, in fact, many Nigerian babies have Irish names, such as his, Kieran.

The one thing that sustained St. Patrick during his life was the primacy of the Gospels, that they should be the centerpiece of our lives. I’m sure he’d be appalled that his name and feast day are used as excuses for public drunkenness here in the United States and especially in Philadelphia. I wish the revelers would spend one minute thinking about St. Patrick and his good works rather than hours of partying. It demeans him and makes them look stupid.

OK, I’ll put my soapbox away for now. If you want to read more about St. Patrick, follow the link below.

http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-patrick/

Picasso comes to Fairmount

Finally a nice day here in the city. Your Center City Correspondent and Mrs. CCC took a stroll up to the Art Museum to take in the Picasso exhibit. The show included a lot of Picassos early works and other avant-garde painters and artists. I was never a big fan of Cubism, the art movement that Picasso started. Deconstructing people and scenes and still lifes to rectangular shapes is not my cup of tea, but it was the way these artists saw reality. They were either drinking some bathtub wine or smoking some hellacious dope. What was surprising was that most of the exhibit came right from the museum’s own collection; they did not have to scour other museums for this show. I never realized they had so many Picassos, they must keep them in the attic and only bring them out for special occasions.

A lot of the artists “are influenced by” or “emulate” other artists. If their forte was writing instead of painting, they’d all be accused of plagiarism and their work discredited. A couple of times you’d be looking at a painting thinking it’s one guy, and voila, it’s somebody who “worked in the same genre.” One guy who did impress me was Ferdnand Leger. He came later than Picasso and his works showed an urban vitality which I liked. I guess I like a sense of place in my artwork. That’s why I like Cezanne, he painted the same mountain about 50 times, so you get to see it all seasons and moods. The show was jammed for 11 AM on a Friday morning – doesn’t anybody work anymore?


Afterwards, we walked up Fairmount Avenue and had a nice lunch. It’s been two weeks since the last snow storm, and it’s 50 degrees out, and the big topic of conversation was how much snow is left in the neighborhood. Some streets haven’t seen a plow since the Goode administration. So not only can’t they move their cars, but the trash trucks can’t get down the street, so the snow might melt but it will be replaced with mounds of trash. One guy said he carries his trash around the corner where the trash truck can get to. We’re lucky we don’t live on any of those streets.

All for now. Enjoy your weekend.