first photo taken by a neighbor of mine, mid Market, near 6th street, San Francisco, last year in December of a peregrine falcon. That’s much harder to photograph ‘in the wild’ because they’re a lot faster and don’t stick around for long
the red tail hawks are a bit slower, and sometimes perch for 10 seconds or longer
this one landed 15 feet from my window today
and further away
if you’re in the mid market area, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th streets, market street near there, a little south of market and some nearby parts of the tenderloin, especially if you see flocks of pigeons flying around like mad
look up, you might see this
what is attracting them to this area is the large number of people, some of them ‘mentally ill’, who feed the pigeons on a daily basis. Ask the city street sweepers about it sometime. They’ll tell you about the homeless, semi-homeless (housed) who throw food out the window or dump food on the sidewalk for the pigeons
this, in turn, attracts these birds of prey, who find the large flocks of pigeons an easy feast (compared to the real wilderness)