The Birds, Without Bees

I love educating people. I'd be a teacher if it wasn't for the fact that I intensely dislike other people's children. But I've been known to spend long units of time blathering on about horses, food, the weather, Southern Utah's Red Rock country…well, you get the picture.

So it was no surprise that while taking some teenagers around Temple Square I stopped to show them a well known resident. Salt Lake City is home to a nesting pair of
Peregrine Falcons. In my family we do some casual bird watching so I'm familiar with numerous breeds. Plus being that I work outside pretty much next to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, where the birds have a nesting box, I've seen them and their offspring swooping around downtown. On this particular evening I came around the corner from North Temple onto State Street and happened to notice one of the falcons perched on the top of the front corner of the apartment building across the street. Stopping the carriage opposite the building I pointed the bird out to the occupants and said,

"It's sitting up there, possibly waiting for an unsuspecting bird to fly by, then it will dive down and make a meal out of it."

Because in theory that's the type of behavior they should be doing.

As we're watching the Peregrine, another bird flies into the vicinity.

"Maybe it'll attack that bird," I tell them.

The second bird flaps over, and lands next to the Peregrine. Then we all watch as it hops on the first bird's back, has its way with it, then flies off.

Wham. Bam. Thank you ma'am.

Silence ensues.

Crap, did that really just happen? Did I just expose these kids to Bird Porn? There's gonna be a phone call, I'm sure.

As they say, timing is everything.

You can watch the nesting pair of falcons from the comfort of your computer. That works well for me, because I'm not a big fan of heights.

http://wildlife.utah.gov/peregrine/