Sometimes amidst all the concrete and coldness of a big city like New York if you are lucky, you come upon something that can reveal nature in all its primal beauty. Today, while on my way to the subway station at 57th Street and 7th Avenue, I looked up and saw an amazing sight near the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle: a large bird of prey was making a slow circuit around the construction area there and above the concrete.
I was transfixed. I couldn't help but watch as one of nature's most skilled hunters which I recognized as a peregrine falcon was scanning the sky below it for its favorite food: pigeons. I stood there and watched as people raced by me on their way home, to the theatre, to restaurants. The falcon would float about 150 feet above the ground and when it saw its prey, would dive with its wings pressed firmly against its body; a feathered missile guided towards its dinner.
The pigeons, for their part have learned to adapt. If they are fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of their predator, they will flop over in midair, deliberately making their way through the sky chaotic for a few seconds, during which they escape death. I could have watched them for hours and I didn't feel the least bit silly watching nature's drama, this struggle for life and for sustenance, while almost everyone else around me was oblivious to it.
Eventually the falcon moved on to a more promising area on the Upper East Side. No matter what you think of pigeons, they are not stupid. When the falcon finally passed over to the other side of Central Park, the pigeons took to the skies again. What I would have given for a camcorder at that moment.


