The birds have not turned Sloan’s Lake into Bodega Bay, the California town terrorized by crows in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”
Yet.
Dive-bombing red-wing blackbirds have been menacing joggers and walkers in the past few weeks, creating a flurry of chatter on the NextDoor app after a woman reported that she and her roommate had been attacked when running on the north side of the lake.
The responses were almost immediate.
One person avoids the area of the last attack and runs in the street. Another said the bird hit his dog and then went after him. Someone else suggested wearing a mask backwards because the bird tends to attack from the back. One person asked if this was the real-life version of Angry Birds. Someone else recommended wearing hats.
On a recent visit to Sloan’s Lake, it didn’t take long for a Denver Post reporter to witness a bird blitz.
A red-winged blackbird quickly swept down from its tree, loudly squawking at unsuspecting passersby and targeting their heads.
While the bird missed the reporter’s head, victims of the bird’s alleged frequent attacks shared their own tales of surprise, bemusement and trauma.
Anni Morrow, who was walking her 8-month-old puppy, Aspen, around the lake Wednesday, searched the tree canopy the bird seems to frequent.
She didn’t find him that day, but the sightings — and head bangs — have been frequent.
“It was terrifying,” Morrow said of the first time she felt wings whacking her hair. “For a quick second, I was like, what is happening?”
Mary Heiman, who lives a block away and walks her dog around the lake regularly, first thought the bird was just getting very close to her head.
Then she realized the bird “body slams you in the back of the head, flies around frantically and then goes back in the bush.”
“It’s funny,” she said. “It’s just startling when it happens.”
Birding experts say the feathered attackers are just protecting their nests. Some are just more territorial and aggressive than others.
A few years ago, a Common Grackle, another blackbird, was attacking people at the Chick-fil-A in Littleton, recalled Karl Brummert, executive director of the Audubon Society of Greater Denver.
The Sloan’s Lake birds, which are pitch black with red near the wings are the males, Brummert said. They’re probably protecting a nest with a mother and her babies and trying to keep predators away.
But not all red-winged blackbirds are that aggressive about their nests, he said. Others don’t seem quite that bothered by people’s presence.
The city’s parks department hasn’t received complaints about the attacks, Scott Gilmore, deputy executive director of Denver’s parks department, said. But if people report where the attacks happen, parks employees can at least put out temporary signs during nesting season.
Still, Brummert hopes these attacks won’t stop people from birding.
“Go to a safe distance and enjoy the birds,” Brummert said.