On Tuesday afternoon, Deadspin reported on a hawk that was perched outside their Manhattan office. It was spotted on the fire escape of Soho rodent farm and hip hotel the Bowery House, lazily stalking a veritable rat army below that was parading back and forth, practically begging to be eaten:
There were rats running everywhere out there… The rats were scurrying across the first-floor roof, crawling under tarps and pallets, going in and out under the doors. Some of the rats were twice the size of the others, brown and glossy.
This type of vermin-inspired carnage is what the internet was made for. But still, author Tom Scocca stuck with the hawk:
On and on it went. The hawk yawned and snapped its beak at the mop head. A rat walked down the fire escape stairs, right behind the hawk’s back. Then another rat walked down the stairs with the hawk looking on. Those still watching began to express doubts about the hunger or the competence of the hawk. A Cooper’s hawk or a sharp-shinned hawk, something built for agility in the forest, would have had half a dozen kills while this fat-winged one just sat there.
Yet, the real story was crawling right below their noses:
No one had ever seen so many rats. You could have killed a dozen rats and the rat traffic wouldn’t have abated.
You guys are doing it wrong. It’s time like these that you point your attention (and camera) towards the action, not the pedestrian firmly planted on the sidelines. There was a Rambo-level of rats for Christ’s sake and yet no footage of any rats has emerged out of this nature watch? Seriously? What a travesty. There was a “fraud” and an “underachiever” sitting idly by yesterday, but it wasn’t a hawk.
(Photo: Deadspin)
