Blue Jays, Crows, a Red-Tailed Hawk & some Falcons

Today, I went looking for Blue Jays and encountered a hawk instead. In actuality, I did not go looking for Blue Jays and I never even saw them but I definitely heard them. Yoshi and I were out for a stroll. It was around noon because I remember looking at my phone afterwards for the time as if that could explain it all and, maybe, it did somewhat. It was lunchtime. We turned left onto Valentine from Pennsylvania and I could hear lot of Blue Jays making a lot of noise way up high in a tree to our left. I think Blue Jays are kind of pretty birds and I wanted to see if I could see any of them. Blue Jays are kind of like Cardinals in winter. They add splashes of color to otherwise monochromatic seasonal landscapes. Winter is brown, gray and, sometimes, white. Summer is very green which is not exactly a drab color but it was a very dry summer here and most green things are tinged a crispy brown.  I picked Yoshi up so I could concentrate on really looking for splashes of screeching blue creatures high up in olive drab trees. When I looked up, I clutched my little Chihuahua to my chest because the reason the Blue Jays were making all that noise was there was a Red-Tailed Hawk sitting on a branch. He or she was looking over its right shoulder as its body pretty much exactly faced diagonally the corner of Pennsylvania and Valentine. It all made sense now. The Blue Jays were making so much noise because they were ganging up on the hawk in an attempt to annoy it enough that it would leave. I wondered, briefly, if I had ever heard of or read of a Red-Tailed Hawk dive-bombing a person in an urban neighborhood in order to capture their Chihuahua for lunch. Then, rationality returned, Peregrine Falcons dive-bomb their prey not Red-Tailed Hawks but, maybe, Red-Tailed Hawks find Chihuahuas tasty? As these random thoughts criss-crossed my panic, the Hawk decided it had had enough of the Blue Jays and their incessant chatter and flying shadow-boxing. It lifted its huge wings and jumped and turned and flew west down Pennsylvania. That was momentarily frightening and awe-inspiring. They are not small birds. We continued on our walk and I wondered where the Hawk had gone. I did not wonder for long. As we completed our walk and got to 37th and Jefferson, I could hear crows and a lot of them. Their raucous cawing was coming from the left. I had to investigate. I picked Yoshi up. He was completely unnerved by this point. I think I might have screamed when the Hawk jumped up and flew away. It was close enough I could see it's body in 3D.  I picked up my little dog who had been happily trotting along the sidewalk and carried him and we walk up to the T-shaped intersection of Pennsylvania and 37th. The noise from the crows was coming from a bunch of trees surrounding two houses on the elevated side of the street. The Hawk was nearby. Crows and Blue Jays do not like Hawks. I walked across the street and stood on the sidewalk still clutching my Chihuahua to my chest and peered amongst the tree foliage for the Hawk. It was there and, maybe, it was even eyeballing my dog but I could not locate it. One of my neighbors who lives on that corner happened to drive by and asked me if I was okay.  I couldn't see the Hawk but I imagined I could feel its sharp-beamed, amber-eyed gaze on me. It preferred to remain hidden as it continued its noon hunt. Quickly, I headed West on 37th with my sweet little, unsuspecting dog clutched to my front. I thought about the two times I've seen Peregrine Falcons in my life. Both times, it was in this suburban, urban neighborhood and both times I made very, unnerving eye contact with them because I came upon both of them so abruptly. I screamed both of those times too. I can't say it's everyday I'm walking and there is a thud to my left and I look and there is a Falcon which has just dive-bombed a little bird to the middle of the street right at 38th and Pennsylvania. That was a cold, gray Saturday in early March and, yeah, I screamed. It was surreal. Then, there was the other incident in the overgrown front yard of a house on Jefferson. That was just last Fall.  My screaming saved the little bird, I don't know what it was, in March but the Robin thumb-tacked to the ground last Fall with falcon talons was not so lucky.