It’s time to get the story straight. Our Hero Hawkmadinejad, christened and courted with gads of sightings over the course of last school year, proved pervasive and rather uncanny. Commenters squinted at his tail feathers as they seemed to shift from brown to red and then to brown again – rather strange for a red-tailed hawk that only molts in its red retrices once. Something was up with our fair feathered friend.
So here we have it: the truth. From birder and blogger Bruce Yolton,
“I would say Columbia has a juvenile hawk and two adults right now, plus the two fledglings which will begin exploring the campus later this summer.”
I know, I know, it’s shocking to think that Our Hero is, well, rather of the poly-faceted sort, but there you have it. We’ve got a juvi that will probably molt to his/her red tail feathers this coming spring. Then there are a couple of hawks that have shacked up at St. John the Divine and made two beautiful eyases. We’ve been sighting the former three hawks and calling them one.
But there is hope. The juvi, still unnamed, has been called “Hawkmadinejad” by a few bird bloggers in the neighbirdhood – it could become that bird’s official name, or at least the alter ego of “Norman”. And the spirit of the thing remains: our juvi Hero will be arriving down from upstate, where he probably summered, and begin tearing squirrels to shreds around midterm time. The Divine pair are still over at the church, pooping all over the gargoyles and saints – albino peacocks beware! And we’ll be watching it all, camera phones in hand.
Send sightings of and writings on Hawkmadinejad to hawkmadinejad@gmail.com
12 Comments
@kjr Tristan and Isolde nested together at St. John’s for a few successful years, but this spring Tristan presumably died (last seen injured in Morningside Park) and then a new male (Norman) quickly took Tristan’s place with Isolde (scandalous!).
@birder i think the pair at st. john already have names – tristan and isolde.
@aluuuum University of Havana-North starring Fedtail Castro.
Lerner Hall 10/9/2008
see email for lottery soon!
@omg Will you be able to anticipate all the traffic you’ll be getting, or will Columbia’s incompetence once again come on top?
@funny stuff haha This is a hillarious article! nice work.
@one vote from me! one vote for feddtail castro as well!
Haawkashvili sounds good too.
@Stork This has nothing to do with our hero, but I was just thinking that Sarah Palin should name her next child Bwog.
And while we’re at it, I put in my vote for ‘Fedtail Castro’ for one of our neighborhood fledglings.
@Anonymous Can one of them be “Haawkashvili”?
@hmmm The problem is that there are no more squirrels any more. Hawkma needs to focus on the pigeons and rats.
@Names Should be plays on other evil dictators, like Saddam Hawksain, or Fedtail Castro.
@it seems that there is a logical progression here: though the discussion of red-tailed hawks and the amazing ways they rid our campus of vermin should still be under the heading of “hawkmadinejad,”
the two older ones may need some distinguishing: hawkmadinehen, henmadinejad, or hawkmadinemom; & hawkmadinecock, cockmadinejad (personal favorite), or hawkmadinepop.
@(a haiku) Hawkmadinejad
Once you were just one, now three
Hawkmadinejads.