A looming, silent predator has cast a shadow over Bainbridge Island as of late.
And it may take your hat.
People on the trails surrounding Gazzam Lake should be cautious, Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Parks & Recreation District officials said Friday, as at least one runner was recently attacked by an owl there.
The winged perpetrator (of a still undetermined species, but most likely a barred owl), is probably guarding its young, Park Services Division Director Dan Hamlin said.
Overprotective mamas and papas abound round here, but few helicopter parents of the human variety are quite so aggressive.
The attack reportedly occurred early Friday, Aug. 11, and Cyndy Holtz quickly took to Nextdoor Bainbridge Island, a neighborhood social media website, to spread the word.
“There was an owl near the water tower on the Gazzam Lake Trail this morning that tried to attack a runner,” she wrote. “Be alert when you’re in the area.”
Hamlin agreed, saying previous such attacks have resulted in injury and loss of hats — the owl’s favorite trophy.
It doesn’t want to hurt you, he added, but it does want you to stay away from its babies while they are learning to fly — a seasonal ritual which occurs around this time every year.
Posters will be put up in the area, Hamlin said, to give hikers, joggers and bikers a heads-up to keep their heads down.
Gazzam Lake is not the only island locale that’s been the scene of such swoopings, though.
Elizabeth Churchill recently wrote on Facebook of a similar incident in the Grand Forest, likewise seeking to spread the word.
Churchill, it seems, is an especially appealing target for these avian assailants.
“In the past week, I’ve been swooped at four times,” Churchill wrote.
“I live deep in the Mediocre Forest (midway between the Grand Forest and the Poor Pitiful Forest), and for 10 years I’ve coexisted happily with many owl neighbors,” she explained. “But last week I was walking on the road at the end of the driveway at dusk when a large male barred owl swooped down from behind me with noisy wing flapping, brushed his wing against my face, then sat in a tree overhead and glared down at me.
“The next night, same time same place, one owl attacked me silently from behind (no wing flapping to warn me), slamming into the back of my head with his claws, while a second owl knocked up against my right shoulder. This double attack was unnerving enough that I decided to give up my dusk walks in that area for a while.”
Churchill was also attacked closer to home, seemingly without provocation.
“I was just reading a book on my deck and minding my own business,” Churchill wrote. “What does this mean? What am I suddenly an owl magnet? Or an owl target? Have I been accepted at Hogwarts, or do they have a contract out on my head? These beautiful creatures are magnificently and alarmingly BIG up close. I don’t want to bother them but I also don’t want to spend the rest of the summer hiding under my couch.”
Hamlin, who was himself attacked years ago, said the best thing to do is be aware of your surroundings and, for a while at least, keep a sharp eye out for owls because, “You won’t always hear them coming.”
