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The Red-tailed Hawks of University Lake
by Charly Mann
Since I was very young I have loved to observe the birds that inhabit Chapel Hill. I may have inherited this tendency from my mother who had several generations of blue jays that would come into our house and eat peanuts out of her hand from our dining room table. I have learned that with patience and a tranquil disposition most birds will eventually allow you to get very close to them.
A Red-tailed Hawk soars near the shoreline of University Lake in Chapel Hill
Over the years I have found one of the best places to enjoy birds is around University Lake. Besides being the source of drinking water for Chapel Hill since 1932, many wild birds enjoy living in the trees of the heavily forested shoreline.
A Red-tailed Hawk at University Lake
I have observed many Red-tailed hawks at University Lake from late spring to early fall. These are magnificent and highly intelligent creatures that can live as long as twenty years. They are often mistakenly identified as eagles. Their diet consists primarily of snakes and rodents. They have wingspans of about five feet and are members of the falcon family. These hawks weigh as much as four pounds and their eyesight is so keen that they can clearly see a mouse a hundred feet away.
This Red Tail Hawk has just lept off a limb as she begins to descend on a prey
A great thing about red-tails is that if you know where they like to live they are relatively easy to find. Just walk or kayak around the shoreline of University Lake in late morning or early afternoon when they like to hunt and you will likely see one. If you are quiet and observant you can often get very close to these birds.
Red Tail Hawks are often camouflaged in the trees around University Lake in Chapel Hill
Walking through some of the unpsoiled forests outside of town is a great getaway from the stress, congestion and noise I find in the ever more urban Chapel Hill environment. Getting close an animal like this reminds me of the following lines from Ekhart Tolle:
"Negativity is totally unnatural. It is a psychic pollutant, and there is a deep link between the poisoning and destruction of nature and the vast negativity that has accumulated in the collective human psyche. No other life form on the planet knows negativity, only humans, just as no other life form violates and poisons the Earth that sustains it. Have you ever seen an unhappy flower or a stressed oak tree? Have you come across a depressed dolphin, a frog that has a problem with self-esteem, a cat that cannot relax, or a bird that carries hatred and resentment? The only animals that may occasionally experience something akin to negativity or show signs of neurotic behavior are those who live in close contact with humans and so link into the human mind and its insanity."
photos by Kathryn Mann
Comments:
sue whitaker
9:09 AM Sat 1/2/2010
I live in No California now where red tails hawks are quite prevalent. Didn't know there were so many around Chapel Hill. Great photos. Your wide range of knowledge, detail & insight of all things "Chapel Hill" continues to amaze me. I think you have a book to write!!
Richard Black
7:27 PM Fri 1/1/2010
You do a great job covering such a wide spectrum of time and subjects relating to Chapel Hill. My resolution for 2010 is to read Chapel Hill Memories at least once a week for now on.
Donna Boyce
5:05 PM Fri 1/1/2010
Spectacular photography. I had no idea that hawks could be found anywhere close to Chapel Hill.
Check out our other website:
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.com
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.com
Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
Check out Charly Mann's other website:
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
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I can see by your photos there is a lot more to Chapel Hill than UNC basketball. It is my dream to attend UNC when I finish high school in Wilmington next year. I hope to see some of these hawks in person when I do.