[Mnbird] Fun sharpie sighting in South Minneapolis

Richard Becker rhbecker at umn.edu
Fri Aug 21 19:32:43 CDT 2020


I live in an apartment building on Franklin Ave. that has a parking area 
running parallel to
Franklin behind the building. Returning from a shopping trip I turned 
onto the side street
where the driveway to the parking area is and saw something largish and 
gray flash across
the street and disappear into the parking lot. When I got to the 
driveway and turned in there
was a hawk chasing a couple of sparrows back towards me and it tried to 
follow one that
flew under a parked car. It hopped back out empty-taloned and stood 
there looking around
some 15-20 feet in front of me. It was clearly a Sharp-shinned Hawk. A 
couple of sparrows
flushed from a bush next to my car and the hawk took off heading for the 
gap between my
car and the bush, then though better of it and turned up and away maybe 
3 feet from me.
No red on the breast so a juvenile. It landed back on the ground, 
contemplated the surroundings
for a few seconds, and flew up into a tree. I parked, unloaded my 
groceries, checked for but
couldn't see the hawk, but also couldn't see or hear any sparrows, and 
went indoors.

Other than walking past a tree just off the U. of M. campus and seeing 
an adult Sharp-shinned
hawk sitting in it 10 feet off the ground, this was the best look I've 
ever had at one of them.




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