How wayward hawk was finally captured after terrorising quiet town for weeks Source: Sky News, PA, Steve Harris, 5 News / ITN
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I was walking down the drive on a Sunday evening after putting my bins out and suddenly from behind me
00:06the hawk swooped down, got me on the back of the head. I had no idea what had happened
00:11because I was one of the first people to be attacked by the hawk, so I didn't know what
00:18was happening until out the corner of my eye I saw the hawk fly away and it dawned on me that
00:24I'd been attacked by the hawk.
00:42It basically just chased me into the garden and it started just working its way down towards me.
00:48Luckily I had a cage that we've been using to try and entice it in and I just grabbed this cage,
00:52opened it up and kind of was blocking it getting to me and then when it got close enough I just
00:56basically threw this cage onto it. We tried to lure it down with a lure and a piece of food,
01:01wasn't having none of it because it's as fat. The locals have been feeding it sausages and
01:05all sorts by the sound of it. We was just about to give up to go home and the guy here, Mr Harris,
01:13and it was a Harris hawk that we caught which is unbelievable he couldn't make that up
01:16and he luckily put it over a trap which another guy, another local falconer
01:21had lent Mr Harris a trap and right time at the right place. It's probably a bit of a hormonal,
01:28let's say it's coming into breeding exercise, it's probably an imprint so he's looking for a mate
01:34and he's doing all this dive bombing. I've been up here every day for the last three weeks trying
01:38to catch it till dark but it's so clever, everything would be, it's always one step
01:43ahead of you, whatever you do it's always one step ahead. We've tried numerous traps,
01:48it works them out. We had a trap set for about four days in Steve's garden and it set it off
01:55one night didn't it, set it off and we thought once you set it off it's not going to go near
01:59it again but it's been showing interest in it all the time and so last night we decided to
02:05leave it set so this morning when it woke up it'd be there and it'd go in the trap as it's hungry.
02:11At the end of the day I'm here, I was here just to catch it so it didn't get shot you know and
02:15to stop the people in the village getting smashed and it has become a pain in the bum,
02:19do you know what I mean, but it's a living animal, it deserves to live and that's what I was doing,
02:24trying to catch it and it was just lucky that Steve stayed at home today
02:27and we decided that we were going to leave the trap set.