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Hawk! Bird Of Prey Seeks Meal At East Village Chicken Joint
By
Jen Chung
Published Jun 19, 2009
Modified Jun 20, 2009
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By
Jen Chung
Published Jun 19, 2009
Modified Jun 20, 2009
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We suppose that even hawks get tired of killing their prey—yesterday, D. Billy at And I Am Not Lying wrote that he had a good lunch, "Well… there was this one part where A F***ING HAWK FLEW INTO THE RESTAURANT WHERE I WAS EATING, AND LANDED ON MY FOOD." What follows is an endearing story of shock and awe:
I was sitting at a window seat next to the open door, and my food had just been brought out. I looked down to see this guy (or gal - I don’t know hawks) just standing in the doorway, looking back and forth. After surveying the place for a few seconds, it flapped its way in and up onto one of the empty tables.
The guy working the counter came out, and we were both (slowly and carefully) snapping pictures with our phones. The hawk didn’t react to us apart from turning his head to look back and forth between us — even when said employee said:
“Man, you inna wrong place, bird! Dontchu know this a chicken joint?”
The hawk, whose talons were covered in jerk BBQ sauce while "looking all emo," eventually got spooked when a delivery guy entered and flew into the kitchen: "The counter guy, the delivery guy and I heard a few pots clanging as we debated calling animal control versus just trying to shoo it back out the door, when one of the cooks who was back there caught the hawk with his bare hands, and walked it back outside." Awesome. More awesome: It happened at Birdie's.
There are plenty of hawks and falcons in the city—they help keep the rat population down. A few years ago, Bryant Park put its hawk program (with hawks used to seek rats) on ice because hawks were attacking rat-like dogs.
Update: Here are some pictures of red-tailed hawks in Riverside Park, where, unfortunately, there was no chicken in jerk BBQ sauce.
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bird of prey
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D.Billy
falcon
food
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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