No doubt upset by the recent DNA study saying that their former cousins the falcons are more closely related to parrots than to them, a pair of red-tailed hawks attacked a Cape Cod, Massachusetts, woman on Monday, June 30, 2008.

First it was an alligator at nearby Barnstable, on Cape Cod, and now attacking hawks. Cape Cod is turning into a hot bed of weird animal news this summer. Perhaps a Sea Serpent sighting will occur any day now? Seriously, I would ask Cape Cod-located cryptozoologists-in-training to keep an eagle eye (no pun intended) out for more unusual animal stories for the area. (The local media will be more open to printing them, not that there will actually be “more,” per se.)

Anyway, to the matter at hand: The Cape Cod Times reported that Ginny Ouellette of Cotuit, Massachusetts, was walking in the vicinity of her Eisenhower Drive home when a pair of red-tailed hawks, which have a nest across the street, swooped down on her. She was hit once in the back of the head but it wasn’t until the second pass that the bird drew blood, she said.

The birds scraped her head with its talons and it took 10 stitches to close the gash.

“I didn’t actually see it,” Ouellette, 78, said. “It came up in back of me.”

Several people in the neighborhood reported being attacked by the two dive bombing red-tailed hawks, including one man who said he was bombarded five times, a Cotuit Fire Department official said.

The birds have hit at least three people and have swooped down on more, Barnstable animal control officer, Charles Lewis said.

When firefighters arrived with the ambulance shortly after noon Ouellette had a cloth to her head to soak up the blood, a Cotuit fire official said.

Lewis suspects the hawks are attacking people because they have young in a nearby nest. But the situation should change when the young birds leave the area, he said.
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