A hawk that terrorized a sleepy English village for weeks was finally captured on Thursday, ending a string of around 50 attacks that landed a 75-year-old man in the hospital, disrupted postal deliveries, and stole two woollen beanies belonging to a 91-year-old man.
Greenhalgh had stopped at Flamstead, a small village about 30 miles north of London, on his way home, to boost efforts to catch the bird. Just as he arrived, he saw the hawk fly down from a chimneypot, “chase a guy across the road and tried to … knock him on the head,” he said.
“I thought ‘Oh, you horrible little bird.’ Then he had a go at an Amazon driver. And I think ‘Oh my goodness me,’” Greenhalgh added.
Then, he watched as Harris left his house to go for a run “and (the hawk) starts chasing him down the road … for about 3-400 yards and you can see him ducking, diving out the way a bit.”
Chaotic scenes like this had become commonplace in Flamstead in recent weeks, with some locals resorting to wearing helmets to protect themselves from the attacks.
Harris even began wearing a helmet when he went out running after he had been attacked twice, he told Britain’s PA Media news agency. He hadn’t let his two children out in the backyard for weeks since it became one of the hawk’s favored spots, he added.
Meanwhile, Glyn Parry – a 91-year-old resident – made a chinstrap out of a shoelace to keep his hat on his head after the hawk stole two of his woollen beanies. “It was such an unusual thing, so I thought it won’t happen again, but it did,” he told the BBC.
The hawk’s reign of mayhem came to an end on Thursday, when it went into a local garden, where Greenhalgh spent about 40 minutes trying to coax it down into a trap before it flew back to Harris’ yard.
“I heard Steve shouting ‘Quick, quick, I think I’ve got it,’” Greenhalgh said, recalling that he rushed into the yard to help Harris stop the hawk escaping the makeshift trap.
The hawk is now “in a specialised aviary, awaiting re-training,” local police said in a statement.
Jim Hewitt, the 75-year-old man who was treated in hospital for hawk-inflicted injuries, said he was “relieved” it had had been caught, according to Britain’s PA Media news agency.
“I had to be careful and cautious – the sensible thing was to drive to the shop, but I won’t get beaten by a poxy bird,” he said.
“I’m relieved that it’s been caught and not had to be put to death or shot. And I’m even more relieved that a child isn’t going to get hurt.”
Tall, bald men were the most frequent targets of the attacks, said Greenhalgh, theorizing that the hawk “was getting a little bit hormonal and he’s looking for a … mate” now that it is breeding season.
He explained that birds of prey can imprint on their owners if they’re hand-reared and said that this hawk had probably been raised by a tall, bald man. “Because they’re totally humanized, he thinks he’s a human, he doesn’t think he’s a hawk,” he added.