What Would You Name a Seemingly Peaceful Neighborhood Hawk?


Humans and hawks on the island of Manhattan have an uneasy truce. We let them live in our trees and on our celebrities' buildings, and they thin out the pigeon population for us. Occasionally, they do funny things like eat at our chicken restaurants. But the hawks do not appear to be part of the larger bird-human secret war we've been covering here on Daily Intel. As a result, we've become so comfortable with our birds that we've taken to naming them: Pale Male, Lola, and Henry and Katherine Hudson, for example. It's kind of a strange practice, when you think about it.

Of course, the birds don't respond to the names, and they don't use them among themselves. In fact if they do have names, they're probably like American Indian names — based on characteristics or stories. Like, Pale Male's name in bird language is probably something like He Who Ate That Squirrel One Time and Almost Choked on the Undigested Cigarette Butts Inside. And really, naming birds is a terrible idea in the first place. Once, when Intel Chris was younger and his parents raised pheasants in a coop by the barn out back, he named some of his favorite, more recognizable birds. After "Shaq" didn't make it through hunting season, he never named one again.



Related: Read about the pair of red-tailed hawks that captured — and broke — the heart of the Upper West Side in last year's New York profile.