Whether it’s traffic, crowds, timing or a painfully early start, there are plenty of factors that can turn the commute to work into a hellish experience. But employees at an office complex in Calgary are facing their own Hitchcockian form of hell, as a family of hawks routinely swoop down on people who are just trying to go to work.
A family of five Swainson’s hawks has taken up residence outside the office complex, where they’re always keeping a lookout for potential threats. Unfortunately, their definition of “potential threat” seems to mean adults, carrying lunch bags and coffee cups, who want nothing more than to get through the week without being attacked by a bird.
“Everyone’s on edge because we have to be ready for everything,” Dave Holland, who has been attacked by one of the hawks, told CTV Calgary on Wednesday. “I hear the screech and I want to jump.”
The family of hawks includes two adults and three young birds that hatched in May, and are nearly fully grown. Experts say Swainson’s hawks are quite territorial, with younger birds exhibiting particularly aggressive behaviour.
“We’ve had probably over a dozen people get swooped and hit,” officer worker Tom Grande told CTV Calgary. He added that two or three individuals have been injured badly enough to require stitches.
Local employee Darcy Gibbs says the bird that attacked him came out of nowhere.
“Suddenly I just got hit in the back of my head. It felt like a baseball hit me,” he said. “Once I got inside I felt my head and looked at my fingers, and I had blood on them.”
Alberta Fish and Wildlife says the ornery birds can’t be forcibly removed, as it’s against provincial law to harass, injure or kill them. Instead, they’re advising office workers to endure until September, when the migratory raptors will eventually head south to Argentina for the winter.
“They just said, ‘Look, when they hatch and they leave, then maybe you can do something about the nest,’” Grande said.
In the meantime, employees are being encouraged to protect themselves from the hawks by using umbrellas or tiny flags tucked into their hats. Hawks attack the highest point of their victim, so a flag makes for a good dummy target to protect people from real harm.
Many employees say they’ll just have to pray they don’t become prey through the rest of the month, as they wait for the birds to head south.
“I keep looking over my shoulder,” bird attack victim Dave Holland said. “I don’t know where the mom is… She could be anywhere. Anywhere.”
With files from CTV Calgary
