Actually, Mrs. Graybeard was the target of the reminder today; she went for a walk while I was working on a little project in the radio room.
She came back in covered in blood and still actively dabbing it away with a blood-soaked tissue.
She had been attacked by a hawk. It's nesting season around here and the local papers talk about people being dive bombed pretty regularly. Both of us have heard about this for as long as we can remember, but neither of us had ever been hit by hawk until today. She says it felt like having a brick dropped on her head and she had no idea what hit her. She looked around in an instinctive reaction and caught a glimpse of the departing bird. There are very few coconut trees around here and it's not acorn season so having anything fall out of nowhere and hit your head leads to lots of confusion as you try to figure out what it was.
I helped clean up her head and verified that the claw marks weren't deep enough to require stitches. Scalp wounds can bleed a lot and she pretty much had blood on every piece of clothing.
I think there will be a visit someplace tomorrow for a tetanus booster.
And by the most remote of remote coincidences, yesterday while taking the garbage out something made me glance down the side of the house. Either one of our visitors from 2018 or a relative was on the same side of the house within 3 feet of where that last visitor was standing. It's in the corner of the lot where trees from the four houses make a fairly dense cover. As a rough guess, this guy is about 8" tall.
With those talons if he decided to to dive bomb you there would be blood as well.
My wife was dive bombed by an owl a couple years ago, drew some blood- no warning at all, as owls are very silent flyers. Dang thing followed her home on her walk. I went out a day later , kept my eyes on the sky and say it go over. And my neighbor got a cool picture of her daughter flailing at it with a coat as it made a pass. Apparently barred owls can be quite territorial in the spring.
ReplyDeleteGot my latest tetanus shot about 2 years ago at the Wally World pharmacy before we shopped. They only asked if I had one in the last 10 years as they don't recommend them any more often than that. My last one had been at least 15 years before. The birds aren't a problem around here but you do have to look out for moccasins and copperheads in the pasture especially around the creek. They find frogs and rodents tasty.
ReplyDeleteWe have the moccasins along with coral snakes and rattlesnakes, with the occasional anaconda, but I haven't heard of any of the Burmese pythons from the everglades.
DeleteBasically, it's safe to say everything in Florida wants to kill and/or eat you.
Both of us are almost 9 years since our last tetanus booster. Before that, if you went to an ER for stitches or something that happened outdoors if it had been more than a year since your last shot, they gave you one.
We have a lot of bald eagles in the area, and they will do the same thing to protect their nests. I've heard of them attacking people who blundered too close, some of them nature photographers who just had to get that close-up shot. It ends badly for the unwary because eagles don't take prisoners.
ReplyDeleteYour article made me think of Kirk Douglas' character in The Vikings, when his rival set his hawk on him...
A guy I worked with was working his way along a cliff to get a good shot of a bald eagle nest on top of a stone spire when of the parents hit him hard. His hat was gone and he was bleeding like a stuck pig. He said he was lucky he was changing positions because if he'd had both hands on the camera, he might well have over-balanced and fallen ~50' into the Bering Sea.
DeleteTell Mrs. G we are thinking of her,
ReplyDeleteSo ya gotta go out with a football helmet on your head, make sure it matches the face mask ya gotta wear... snicker.
ReplyDeleteI've seen hawks here dive bombing their lunch, and heard more than saw an owl or two gliding through our backyard during late dusk.
ReplyDeleteHope she'll be alright, and a lot of things out here want you dead, too.
We have Mississippi Kites here in Central TX, and I have heard about them being aggressive in other places, but we've never seen it here. I'd hate to see it here because we love our kites.
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