Anyone who lives or spends time along Diamond and Chenery streets at Lippard could be forgiven for feeling like they’re living in a cheesy Western movie this summer because the soundtrack of city life has added a new track – the frequent, piercing and iconic screech of a bird of prey.
What you’re hearing is a red-tailed hawk, a family of whom have taken up residence in the trees along the pedestrian overpass to Glen Park Elementary School.
That bird screech is rated as the “most identifiable (and overused) sound effects in cinema, all too frequently used in Westerns.
In the movies, what’s often shown is an eagle, but the bird cry they play is actually a red-tailed hawk.
Here in Glen Park, the hawks have built a nest in the highest tree by the corkscrew portion of the pedestrian overpass to Glen Park Elementary at Lippard Street. The adult hawks have been spotted landing in the nest holding mice in their talons for the chicks.
And then the hawks themselves have been seen perching on houses around the neighborhood.
While there have long been red-tailed hawks in San Francisco (they’re even the mascot of Starr King Elementary on Potrero Hill) this is the first time in recent memory a family has taken up such public – and loud – residence.
