(UPDATED*) SF Examiner: Hard to look at this photo. Red-tailed hawk in Golden Gate Park nailed in the head
Looks like the little San Francisco Examiner – once a pub owned by Hearst, which sold the name and took over the SF Chronicle – got a scoop that’s going around the world. Its Sarah Gantz reported yesterday that would-be bird rescuers are trying to catch a red tailed hawk photographed with a nail through its heat, sideways through the base of its beak. Best speculation is that it was done with a nail gun that could do such a thing only if fired from a few feet away. A day earlier she reported the plans to catch it.
Guessing is that the young bird was born in or near the park. It is eating. That gopher in the pic proves it. But, one supposes, a wound like this can’t be survivable for too long, what with risk of infection and perhaps mechanical interference too.
The news got quickly around:
- ABC – Ellen Tumposky: It’s Good News that Hawk with Nail in Head Is Eating, Rescue Group Says ;
- SF Chronicle – Vivan Ho: Hawk with nail in head is eating well ; The hawk has gotten a squirrel and a gopher just this week, says here. Maybe they were so surprised to see a bird heading their way with a nail stuck in its head they froze in their tracks.
- AP: Hawk with nail in head still free in San Francisco;
*UPDATE (Oct. 23): Maybe the nail would have fallen out by itself? Yes or no, it’s out now…
- SF Chronicle – Will Kane: S.F.’s nail-in-head hawk eating rats, doing well ;
- AP: Hawk found with nail in its head recovering in Calif.
- Charlie Petit
