Kathy Borland was doing rounds today (July 4) as a security guard for CMU when she heard there was a dead hawk on Henry Street behind the Software Engineering Institute. When she got there she found it was a peregrine, one of Dorothy and E2′s brood who hatched this spring at the Cathedral of Learning.
Kathy got in touch with me, I got in touch with the PA Game Commission’s Beth Fife and then I went to see the bird.
It was “Yellow Girl,” the one we saw so close on Heinz Chapel on June 6.
“Yellow Girl” apparently hit a window on SEI around 1:15pm with so much force that it completely broke her neck. Kathy found her face down on Henry Street with her wings spread. She probably died instantly.
Poor Yellow didn’t know what hit her. She may have been chasing pigeons and thought the window was the sky. Alas. There was nothing we could do.
As I said before, if you want to save birds do something about windows!
Windows kill.
(photo of deceased juvenile peregrine “Yellow,” black/green, 72/AE, by Kate St. John)
This is so very sad. D*# windows!
