I live in a place called Stuyvesant Town on the north edge of the lower east side of Manhattan. Stuy Town is pretty well known for its squirrels and parks and pigeons and things, but what even a lot of residents don't know is that we also have a mating pair of Red-tailed Hawks. This isn't unprecedented in New York, where two of 5th Avenue's most famous residents, Pale Male and Lola, live on a window ledge overlooking Central Park. In contrast, the Stuy Town pair seem to be their low-rent downtown cousins, but they're gorgeous nonetheless. I've only ever seen them singly and then only once or twice a year if I'm lucky, but this morning for the first time, I saw them both together.

A family of crows lives in the neighborhood as well and the crows really don't like the hawks, and harass them whenever they can. Well, around 10 o'clock this morning the crows really started kicking up a racket, so I looked out the window and sure enough, it only took a bit of squinting to find a hawk in the tree outside. And a minute later, its mate flew up and landed on a branch nearby. Pretty stinkin' cool for Manhattan.

So to all you rural people out there, I say ha! Take your nature and stuff it. I get to have Manolo Blahniks and Wild Kingdom!