Mischa DeHart was about to take her dogs for a walk Wednesday morning, until her husband, Jacob, shouted “Don’t take the dogs out, there’s a hawk outside!”
Jacob was leaving for work that morning when he spotted the hawk perched on the fence in the backyard of his house on the 900 block of North Marion Street. Mischa left the dogs inside and came out for a closer look.
“The hawk just stood there. It didn’t seem to be afraid of us,” Mischa said, “It only flew away after I asked my husband to make some loud noises to scare it off.”
The DeHarts have two dogs, one 35 pounds and the other 5 pounds. Mischa said she’d never seen a hawk in her neighborhood before and was concerned for small dogs and cats in the area.
Based on Jacob’s photos, the staff at Trailside Museum in River Forest believe the bird in question was a young red-tailed hawk. The staff also said the hawk is typically not a threat to pets.
Click here to learn more about the red-tailed hawk.