Chicago Wildlife News: Billboard worker needs stitches after slashed by dive-bombing hawk

Billboard worker needs stitches after slashed by dive-bombing hawk

(POSTED: 5/24/10) Working on a billboard 60 feet in the air can be a hairy job -- especially when a hawk dive bombs into your head.

Craig Busse, a 49-year-old Bartlett resident, would know.

Earlier this month, Busse was up on a catwalk preparing to change an advertisement on a billboard at Interstate 55 and Weber Road in Bolingbrook when he noticed a nest holding two baby hawks, as well as dead mice and rabbits that were missing heads.

Busse moved to the other side of the board -– away from the nest -– and told his co-workers: "Keep your eye out for the bird and move fast."

Within minutes, a red-tailed hawk -- apparently the mom -- swooped down and flew full speed into Busse's head as he knelt on the catwalk. The raptor's talons sliced open the back of his head and left scratches around his ear.

"I felt like somebody punched me in the head," said Busse, who went to the hospital for four stitches, a tetanus shot and antibiotics to clean the wound.

"You don't realize how fast these birds are," he added. "It shocks you. You're 100 feet in the air and then next thing you know, you fall forward a little bit, and you're like, what the hell?"

Luckily he was attached to a safety harness.

Told of the incident, Jacques Nuzzo, program director for the Illinois Raptor Center, said: "If he's off guard, precariously balanced on something, [hawks] know these situations and they can figure these things out."

This type of attack is not rare behavior for red-tailed hawks, which are very territorial and protective of their nests, according to John Parks, director of the Cornell Raptor Program at Cornell University.

"This is the time of year when that sort of instinct peaks," he said.

As for Busse -- who's had several previous encounters with hawks while on the job -- he is still waiting to change that billboard ad.

"There's no way this bird is going to let me work on this sign," he said. "Now we have to wait for the birds to fly away. . . . The hawk won."

By Katie Drews, for ChicagoWildlifeNews.com
Contact: [email protected]

1 comments:

Alycia says:

June 4, 2010 9:32 AM

Well so much for waiting for the birds to fly away! I'm an employee of the company who's lawn the billboard is located in and Paramount Media Group called the USDA to have the babies removed! After trying to capture the mom they got impatient and just took the two baby hawks along with the nest! This is horrible and PMG should be ashamed that they care more about the almighty dollar of renting the sign than they do about this poor family of hawks. It is absolutely horrible that they took the babies away from their mother when they're not even old enough to fly yet! Workers were just up on the sign trying to change the ad and the mom hawk was dive-bombing and circling---to no surprise she won yet again!! She is livid and there is NO WAY she is going to let them up there now! SO GIVE HER HER BABIES BACK AND LEAVE THE POOR THINGS ALONE!

~AM

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