By Mel Dyer
Yes! Penn Branch has an urban legend. That of the Big Bird or Hawkwoman, who haunts our wild, emerald hills...
If you're over 35 and grew up in the Southeast D.C. neighborhood, known as the 'Hollywood Hills' in the mid-1960s, you've probably seen or heard of this creature, at one time in your life. You probably thought you were imagining things ..or that it was just crazy-talk. You may have even heard that it had a woman's head and white, bulging eyes, ..or that it was a witch. While I don't believe that part, I've seen the creature that might have inspired this urban legend, with my own disbelieving eyes, ..perched menacingly on a rooftop, at Carpenter Street and Highwood Drive. It was a turkey vulture...
Right here, in Penn Branch.
Why not a hawk? Well, ..I have seen the kinds of hawks we have in this area, up close - like, walking around on a neighbor's lawn - and I don't think they are anywhere near big enough to inspire the kind of widespread awe that this 'Big Bird' has, over so many decades. One neighbor recently told me that this thing, ..which she described as a witch in black feathers, with a chalk-white face and large, staring eyes, ..glided over a backyard family gathering, back in the mid-70s, and scared the hell out of their guests! An electrician, who no longer lives in Penn Branch, but grew up in the neighborhood, recalls hiking up to Highwood Drive's highest point - and not far from where I saw that turkey vulture, a few years ago - when Big Bird, as his friends called it, swooped down, low enough to send his teenaged friends running for cover, ..before soaring back into the afternoon sky! Hawks fly over Penn Branch, all the time, now - winter, spring or fall...doesn't matter - and, while a majestic thing to behold, I have not seen one that I would mistake for a monster. Comparatively speaking, this bird has to be a little bit larger, than a hawk, and the turkey vulture that I saw, firsthand, on Highwood Drive, and have recently heard about from neighbors, more closely fits the description of our quasi-mythical beast.
What I saw wasn't just a big bird. It was a bi-iig bird.
Apparently, we've had turkey vultures in Fort Davis Park, which stretches from one end of ANC-7B to the other, since the Sixties, at least. So, my theory about this so-called 'Hawkwoman' is that a large raptor - eagle, vulture or bird of that size - with some kind of unusual marking or missing feathers on its neck, was occasionally seen, flying over the neighborhood. Upon first sight of the unusual markings on its feathers or bare throat, ..kids, not understanding what they were looking at, likely mistook it for a white face, with open, staring eyes. I was told, sometime ago, in a chat with a Park Service officer, that scarring from various bird illnesses ..or from a fight with another animal (likely another bird) might cause such a mark. I think that the combination of this seemingly bizarre feature, with the black feathers and large size of the animal, would have made it very easy for them to think they were seeing a witch, stalking them from the skies...
And the rest is legend.
I'm really, really sorry that I'll probably never see this bird, because, if it was around, long ago, enough to have been called the 'Hawkwoman of Hollywood Hills', ..the poor animal's got to be long dead, by now. If you've ever seen Big Bird or Hawkwoman ..or know someone, who has,.. please, please, puh-leez share your stories with us, right here on the blog. We'd love to hear from you.
Anyway, i-iiittt's real...sort of. It's also quite sociable, apparently. Read this Post article from 2014...
Mel Dyer, without his fine, coyote-hatin' Goldiweiller, Kirby (now moved on to that big, coyote-hatin' hate group in the Sky) continues a somewhat bleaker, dogless existence in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC. He has been an active member of the Latino Culture Council of the Capitol Area (El Consejo de Cultura Latina – La Zona del Capitolio), the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill and on the Board of Directors of YMCA Capitol View.
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