habitat?!

yet another first for chez kay & cee, but i'll start with a little background for those who are unaware of the magical animal drawing powers our little property has...

when we moved here, we were just settling in and starting to do yard work and all that, and were very surprised to see little rabbits hopping on our side lawn. We were both amazed that here, in the middle of this street, smack dab in the middle of this (albiet small) city, not even close to any woods or conservation area, we would see a bunch of rabbits! time went on, as it tends to do, and we continued to see animals of all different sorts, like raccoons (not that unusual as they do love their garbage and recycle pickings) there was a bear loose one summer but thankfully it didn't come to our yard, and then one fine spring day 3 years ago cee was again out in the yard raking up winter kill when he looked to his side and saw a duck sitting right next to him like it was the most normal thing in the world! now as some of you know, this duck came every day to sit in our yard and visit. i became very attached to this duck and named her jemima (after beatrix potter's story) and fed her bread crumbs. she came every day for 3 weeks that spring, and even brought her drake and a few others to visit. keep in mind that we live in the middle of a long through street, in a city, nowhere near wetlands or countryside. imagine how amazed i was last spring when jemima returned! as before, she came to visit almost every day for about three weeks right around easter. i can only half expect to see her again this year.

i'm digressing...anyway, with the 'good' also comes the 'bad'...we have lost track of how many times cee has had to take his car in to have mice removed from the air filter or heater vents...he is known to the repair shop as only 'The Mouse Guy'...they cannot believe that we don't live on a farm or in the country, becaused this 'only' happens to people that live out in the country or on a farm....tell that to cee's car...

i can only guess that is why, when i drew up my kitchen window blinds a couple days ago, i saw, not less that 3 feet away mind you, one of these sitting on our brick barbecue. it wasn't that particular one, i have linked to a picture of a peregrine falcon, as the event went a little something like this;

me: (roll up blind, see ginormous bird of prey 3 feet away) "Oh!! Holy S**t!!"

ginormous bird of prey: (turns and looks right at me in the window, DOES NOT fly away scared)

me: (almost wetting pants) 'man i should go grab my camera!' (still stand there looking at big, scary bird)

g.b.p.:

me: (thinking) 'i probably won't have time to get the camera and get back before it--hey, what the heck is it doing here--aww crap, does this mean the mice are back?!'

g.b.p.: (turns and looks at me again) i swear it winked!

noisy people across street: (making various getting-in-car noises in between talking loudly in a foreign tongue)

g.b.p.: (looks across the street, looks down at the patio, flies away across next door neighbour's yard)

me: silently curse noisy people, spend a good portion of time looking up what kind of scary bird was sitting in our yard.

i'm no bird expert, but the peregrine falcon looks most like what i saw, and from what i read, is the most likely suspect. i was again amazed that such a thing would appear in our little yard, but i was also a little bit freaked out because i thought 'what if i had let the dogs--most particularly the killer shih tzu-- out' and that thing was there, but then realized that there's probably no way it could cart off an admittedly overweight shih-tzu, or a 70 pound collie....still, visions of hitchcock go through my head...