Wildlife in the City

Today we decided to take a walk to Parque Centenario, a HUGE park about a mile from our apartment.  On Sundays the park turns into a flea market of sorts, and as my husband puts it, people sell “a little bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing.”  It’s true, there is a lot of junk for sale, but it makes for a nice Sunday activity.  On our way to the park however, I was walking under an apartment building when a few feathers fell from the sky and landed on my foot.  A few more floated down and when my husband and I looked up we saw something we didn’t expect to see.  A large hawk like bird was sitting on a ledge on the apartment building and was tearing away at a pigeon, who unfortunately was still alive and flopping around helplessly.  My husband told me that he had seen this type of bird before and was told that it was called a “Carancho” a bird of prey who has somehow managed to survive in this concrete jungle and apparently spends its days feasting on pigeons.  We watched for a few minutes in horrified fascination as the pigeon was devoured bit by bit.  Later, when I looked up information about this bird I discovered the word “Carancho” is also used to describe an “ambulance chaser.”