Monday, December 12th, 2011
Central Park East - 6:50am

There was a full moon out when I got to the Park this morning.  I have a more interesting story than that that I wish I took a picture to document, but unfortunately was too excited to think of it at the time.  The morning started with my new coffee maker.  For the past several years I've used a french press to make my coffee.  Not for any particular reason, perhaps it tastes a little better that way.  In any event, I just bought a new coffee maker so that it can automatically make my coffee at 6:20am so it's ready for me to walk out the door with on my walk with Sofie.  Sofie heard the coffeemaker start brewing and thought it was an intruder.  When we let her out of her crate, she bolted into the other room and started barking at Mr. Coffee.  It was a charming display of  her pint-sized guard-dog skills - "Look there it is! The intruder!"  She'll have to get used to it. 

The exciting story is that this morning at the end of the walk, I came upon an old guy with an Irish Setter who was going nuts to get loose and go chase something (not the old guy - the Setter).  The old guy was all worked up about something and asked me if I had a cell phone (I didn't).  I asked him what was the matter and he pointed that there was a big, beautiful red-tailed hawk down in the middle of the field about 30 meters from us.  It did look kind of weird and like something was wrong.  So, the old guy tells me this whole story about how the hawk is a celebrity and has been in the NY times before and lives above Mary Tyler Moore's 5th Avenue penthouse picture window.  He pointed it out to me and I could indeed see a massive hawk's nest above the stone architecture of the window.  So, we went and found some guys who work for the Central Park Conservancy and told them that the celebrity hawk had hurt itself and was down in the field.  At this point when we got back, there were a few dogs that were trying to get close to the hawk, but he kept puffing his wings up and sort of charging them - he wasn't havin it.  So this hawk must be an important guy because the Central Park Conservancy guys came running over to see what was the matter.  When they got close to him, the hawk charged at them, too.  Well as it turned out, the hawk had a big squirrel that he had caught and just wanted to eat in peace.  When perturbed enough, he gathered up his prey and went flapping away back up to Mary Tyler Moore's apartment window.  I'm still mad I didn't take a picture, because we were so close it would have been really neat.  So, you'll have to make due with this boring moon picture and just imagine a big hawk with a bloody, ripped up squirrel fending off yellow labradors.  Only in New York would you meet not just any hawk, but the famous hawk that lives above Mary Tyler Moore's penthouse apartment. 

Have a wonderful day, everyone!