When Hawks Attack! Area Birds Ready To Defend Their Nests

On a beautiful spring day last month, Triad resident Dean Franco was enjoying a mountain bike ride on the popular Salem Creek Greenway in Winston-Salem. The narrow, six-mile long trail winds along the creek through trees, thick vines and bushes.  It was there on the trail when things began to go awry for Franco. 

"I try to be as attentive to my surroundings as I can be; I didn't have headphones on or anything—really enjoying the natural scenery. And out of nowhere, I felt this powerful thump on my head," says Franco. 

His first thought was that a large tree branch had struck his bicycling helmet. That's a feeling most veteran mountain bikers like Franco know well. But this was something very different.

"It didn't knock me off my bike, but I wobbled and rolled to a stop, and I looked around and I realized there were no trees near me. And then I looked over my shoulder and I saw a hawk flying away and it was screeching at me. And that's when I realized what had happened: I had been attacked by a hawk."

A Red Tailed Hawk, to be exact.  It turns out there were two of them, protecting a nearby nest. Franco says that after initially pulling up, he didn't feel frightened given the comparatively small size of the bird. But then the hawk began circling above, and he realized that it may not have been done with him.

"And I had this double moment where I was both thrilled, and also a little bit terrified to be prey of this hawk."

Hickory, North Carolina resident Susy Morrison knows that sensation well. A nesting pair of Red Tailed hawks terrorized her entire neighborhood last May. After suffering through multiple bird attacks, head injuries and antibiotic treatments, Morrison says she and her neighbors were forced to take extreme measures.

"When you look out and you see your neighbors mowing their yards with army helmets and football helmets on, it's kind of crazy!" says Morrison.

While it may sound a little crazy, Red Tails are big animals: four pounds of bird, razor-sharp talons, and dive-bombing speeds over 100 mph. Dean Franco's brand new plastic bicycle helmet was punctured in two places by the talons. 

But these encounters are actually pretty rare, according to Michelle Houck with the Carolina Raptor Center. 

"In most cases, raptors will live fairly happily among humans," says Houck. "So, you know, I would hate for any story that you would do to be sort of 'be on the lookout for these horrible creatures because they're gonna come and get you ... because I don't think that's really the case."

She says raptors do not hunt humans. They live off of small rodents like mice and voles, and shy away from anything bigger than they are.

But if you are attacked, it hurts. And the frequency of bird-on-man altercations may very well be on the rise. Over the past decade, the Red Tailed hawk population here in the Piedmont has grown by nearly two percent annually.

Lindsay Addison is a biologist with Audubon North Carolina. She says, particularly during springtime, Red Tails become very territorial protecting their hatchlings. So, she suggests that if you should stumble across a hawk's nest on your next hike, pay attention because the birds will often give warning. 

"If it's crying and vocalizing a lot, calling, flying about, appears agitated ... and there are other cues that birds might give you that you're near the hawk's nest," says Addison.

Dean Franco has a less practical strategy for dealing with territorial raptors but one he says is working, at least for now. 

"When I went out riding the other day and I went looking for the nest," says Franco, with a laugh. "As I rode by, I have a very bright pair of pink gloves I wear, and I was waving my arms up in the air the whole time looking over my shoulder this way and that."

He remains undeterred by his recent hawk attack. Over the years, Franco has seen bald eagles, up to twenty wild turkeys at a time, and huge herds of wild deer along these trails. He calls his tussle with the Red Tail just one more glorious moment out there on the Greenway.