Hawks nest in Troy neighborhood, attack children and adults

TROY, Mich. (WJBK) - Hawks have been circling a Troy neighborhood and attacking both children and adults - even sending one person to the hospital. But there's nothing the people who live there can do about the predatory birds.

High in a tree on Hempstead Drive, a hawk guards her hatchlings while a short distance away, her mate calls to her. Meanwhile, down on the street, the neighbors are ready to run. 

"Everyone on this street is afraid," Jerry Bolton said.

He has good reason: the nest is right outside his house and he's been attacked repeatedly since May.

"May 19th, I come out to get in my truck and it hit me in the back and clawed me," Bolton said.

If it sounds like the 1976 film The Birds, you're right. Ironically enough, he says he just finished watching that Alfred Hitchcock classic.

"It felt like somebody punched me in the back and that thing attacked me. I went back in the house and said this can't be possible: I'm watching The Birds, I walk outside and a bird attacks me," he said.

Bolton, a Vietnam vet, had to get antibiotics and a tetanus shot but is otherwise fine, physically

"I'm a Vietnam vet, I spent 12 months in Vietnam and I'm not used to being afraid of anything and that bird's got me looking up all the time," he said.

He's not the only victim. Nine other people have been hurt, most recently his neighbor, Mark, who was attacked on Sunday and fell and hurt himself trying to get away.

"All of a sudden, a hawk came down on him, he starts running and falls down and a hawk hit him in the back. My daughter was going to school at 6:30 in the morning when a hawk got her by the hair," Rudy Denha said.

Nobody on the street is safe. The mail carrier was was caught by surprise when he found himself battling the hawk. He has a scar on the top of his head to prove it. 

So what can be done? Nothing - they have to wait for them to leave. 

Hawks are protected under federal law so the Michigan Department of Natural Resources advises carrying umbrellas and giving the birds plenty of space until she's done nesting. That should be around mid July or August.