Division of Bird Habitat Conservation

Birdscapes: News from International Habitat Conservation Partnerships

Nature's Inspiration

Pigeon Blood Rubies
by Joe Franke

It’s a hot July afternoon, and I’m stepping out of the subway onto a Boston street. Then, within the soft focus of my peripheral vision, something streaks across the rooftop horizon. Pigeons on a ledge begin to scatter. A male red-tailed hawk has a hard bead on one of the birds and strikes it before it can fully spread its wings. The smaller bird struggles until a well-placed bite to the head stills the unfortunate creature. With prey firmly grasped, the hawk makes a casual hop to the top of a lamppost to begin its meal. Within seconds, a group of crows assembles on the rooftop across the street, broadcasting frantic alarm calls as if the end of the corvid universe was at hand.

Only a portly, middle-aged man and I gape at the spectacle. The hawk, oblivious to the traffic noises below, rips the feathers off its prey, releasing a gentle swirl like falling snow over the passersby, all of whom remain unaware of the drama occurring a mere 15 feet above their heads. My newfound companion and I are transfixed.

A shining black Lexus, looking freshly hand-detailed from the carwash, parks directly below the red-tail’s ongoing repast. The driver exits the vehicle, engaging the lock and alarm. Eyeing the two of us with suspicion, he fails to notice the feathers drifting by his head. As he passes, we stare blankly forward into space, so as not to warn him of the coming defilement to his pride-and-joy. It’s as if we’re documentary filmmakers on the Serengeti, unwilling to intervene on the part of an unsuspecting impala being stalked by a lion, lest we interrupt an unfolding natural drama.

Soon bits of guts, pigeon-crop contents, and other assorted bloody offal begin falling gently onto the car’s roof and windshield. Eventually, my coconspirator grows distracted and wanders off, as do all but two of the crows, which occasionally make tenuous passes at the hawk, trying to disquiet him into leaving. I watch the bird for 20 minutes as it methodically picks apart and consumes its prey, and in that time, not one of perhaps 150 people passing by stop to see what I’m so intently watching overhead.

After finishing its meal, the hawk calmly scrapes its beak against the lamppost, fluffs up its feathers, and with a look that I can only interpret as contentment, raises its tail and excretes copiously the metabolized remainder of pigeons past, which lands with a soft plop onto the glass moon roof of the shiny car. After a few minutes to let its meal settle, the red-tail departs with the crows following at a respectful distance.

I contemplate the remains of the hawk’s meal and droplets of blood haphazardly displayed on the Lexus. I recall a type of precious stone found in Southeast Asia called a pigeon blood ruby and try to envision its color, a hue of fading life energy.

Such a heavy price we pay for our lack of awareness. We pass over moments such as these like jewels in the gutter—unacknowledged as they vanish ineluctably down the storm drain of time passing.