Monday, September 6, 2010

Open Season on People - Hawk Attack

I was out railfaning this morning on the MacLeod Sub and while I was photographing some autoracks and taking down reporting marks I heard this hawk screaching up in the sky. He would glide towards me at about 50 feet from the ground and turn around. I never thought anything about it cause he was also circling ovehead. I thought maybe there was some critter in the tall grass that he was trying to catch. I went along with my business but was keeping an eye on him.

As I was getting closer to this clump of trees further ahead, it was about 6 auto racks ahead of me, he was getting more agitated and more screechy. I figured that I was probably getting close to a nest or something. He was circling and sort of doing some swooping now. This was starting to get pretty serious. I got to about 2 rail cars away from the clump of trees, and noticed that that he was coming towards me at about 20 feet off the ground, I thought to myself, "Shitballs Batman! This guy is very pissed!" and he dove at me in the blink of an eye. I ducked and put my note book over my head. He came so close that I heard the wind rush by from his swoop. Guess what I did? I took my last picture, wrote down the reporting marks, and got the hell out of Dodge!

He must of figured that I was leaving cause he immediately ceased his attacks and flew into the clump of trees with a couple final screeches and was quiet. I'll have to go back later this fall when nesting season is done. I still have 11 auto racks to photograph.

Let this be a lesson to all you railfans out there or to anyone for that matter, if you hear a noisy hawk, observe what he does. If he seems to be agitated by your presence, don't piss him off, get the hell out of there and come back another day.

Cheers,

6 comments:

Canadian Train Geek said...

That's a new one to me!

Here in Winnipeg some mail was interrupted by hawks, so it must be the season.

jddc.trains said...

Yes I had heard something about that on the radio. You always think "bah, that wont happen to me" and then it does. I thought the bugger would have flown away, but I guess he really didn't want me around. There was a flock of pigeons hanging around and inside the auto racks so maybe he was protecting his food source...

Zartok-35 said...

This very same thing happened to me once in Moose Jaw!

Alexander said...

Good post very interesting

jddc.trains said...

Thank you. It sure was an interesting day.

Cheers,

jddc.trains said...

to Zartok,

It seems to be happening alot this year. Must be something in the air