Rebecca Kidd was on her way to the downtown Berkeley Y Thursday morning, passing through Civic Center Park, when she spied an unfamiliar shape out of the corner of her eye. A truly massive pigeon, she thought? “No, a very healthy looking hawk. A new permanent resident? It certainly seemed to be at ease,” Kidd wrote Berkeleyside, sharing with us this delightful short video.
We checked in with Berkeleyside contributor and Golden Gate Audubon Society communications director Ilana DeBare for the correct identification of the bird, and she in turn got confirmation from her colleague, Eddie Bartley, that this is a juvenile red-tailed hawk. According to Audubon, red-tailed hawks like “open country, woodlands, prairie groves, mountains, plains and roadsides,” but can be found in “any kind of terrain that provides both some open ground for hunting and some high perches.” Audubon also says on its website that in several regions of North America, red-tailed hawks are adapting to nesting in cities. Including Berkeley, perhaps?
