Beware The Jubjub Bird! Reports Of Bird Attacks On The Rise - CSM

[hatrack]

RALEIGH, N.C. – US Postal carrier Keith Cooper is used to dogs sneering from behind metal gates. He's used to uncivil people who expect to find something in their mailbox and then don't. But this week, as he trundled across Boylan Heights in this Southern city, he ran into a new problem: rambunctious birds. "I was ducking this way, then ducking that way, trying to get away," Mr. Cooper says, recalling a few frenzied seconds where beaks flashed like tiny daggers. "I had no idea what was going on."

It turned out to be an entire Tippi Hedron day. He wasn't divebombed just once, but three times in three different parts of the city. Nor is Cooper the only one seemingly in the flight path of B-52 birds these days. For some inexplicable reason, from Houston to Washington, it's been the year of aggressive mockingbirds, crows, hawks, and even woodpeckers.

EDIT

Some of the incidents are, admittedly, a bit scary. One Houston lawyer this spring found himself getting pecked in the face. Even worse, police had to close down an entire downtown Houston street in late May after gang of grackles attacked pedestrians, knocking some of them down. "Birds, they're on the sidewalk, but they're usually not attacking people," says Bea McCann of the Houston Police Department. She notes that the recent attacks were the first she's ever heard of in the city.

In Washington, bloggers last week were busy cataloguing the adventures of an aggressive hawk that was buzzing cars. In upstate New York, a high-strung woodpecker has destroyed dozens of car mirrors - angered, apparently, by his own image and racking up insurance premiums."

EDIT

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0610/p01s03-usgn.html

[loveable liberal]

1. ever see the movie 28 days?

And not the stupid one with Sandra Bullock. Its the same thing. Me scared.

[CJCRANE]

2. Reminds

me of a short-story by JG Ballard:

http://uk.geocities.com/cleanskies/ballardia/gallstorm.htm

[rkc3]

3. The problem is there are too many trees in American cities.

Where is James Watt when you need him?

Also, why is it that any time we intrude on an animal's territory and the animal defends itself, it's the animals who are out of control?

I watched an Oriole chase a Crow out of my neighborhood on Sunday. Last night I watched a whole flock of Grackles chase a Cooper's Hawk down the street (of course the hawk had a fledgling in his talons). This shit happens every day.

[phantom power]

4. We had a pair of "aggressive" mocking birds last week.

In our case, their baby bird turned up dead on our doorstep the next morning. It probably fell out of the nest, and they were defending it. That used to happen quite frequently in our previous home.

Maybe they are feeling a need to defend themselve against us? I can't imagine why the behavior would increase suddenly, but nature is full of nonlinear group behaviors.

[funflower]

5. I used to be attacked by a crow in the same spot during my morning

walk every day. I started wearing a cap so it wouldn't claw my head but eventually changed my route to escape the beast!