When silent raptor attacked NC neighbors, they named him ‘Owl Capone’ and made T-shirts
.png "A Chapel Hill neighborhood has designed this T-shirt in support of a local owl who has been swooping down and attacking joggers and pedestrians. They are educating themselves about how to coexist with the raptor, likely a young owl learning to hunt, and have named him/her Owl Capone.")
On his evening stroll two weeks ago, Anthony Edward felt a sudden smack on the back of his head.
“But it wasn’t a hand,” he warned neighbors in an email. “It was something pointy.”
He shot his gaze up into the twilight, but the silent attacker struck again — this time scratching his forehead.
“And eyelid!” he reported, taking inventory of his wounds.
Edwards had just fallen prey to a young raptor hunting the Chapel Hill streets — a winged predator so ferocious that neighbors gave it a nickname:
Owl Capone.
Runner-up: Jimmy Talon.
They even made T-shirts.
“I was ‘Caponed’ this morning,” said Erica Sparkenbaugh. “He swooped me twice around 6:45 when I was on a run. ... There are marks on the back of my head.”
So far, the gangster owl has plunged its talons into at least nine passing noggins, all joggers and pedestrians out in low light.
‘A very animal-friendly neighborhood’
By pictures neighbors have collected, Capone appears to be a barred owl, the variety with a call sounding like, “Who cooks for you?” But rather than panic over their violent hooting newcomer, the neighbors of Ridgefield-Briarcliff decided to educate themselves and share territory rather than launch an inter-species gang war.
“We’re a very animal-friendly neighborhood,” Sparkenbaugh said, adding that T-shirts designed by neighbor Edson Freeman have topped 140, proceeds from which support neighborhood landscaping. “We have people who like to re-home the copperheads.”
A wildlife biologist told NPR last year that such attacks are on the rise, and the story of a wounded pedestrian in Washington state even prompted mention of the “owl theory,” raised in defense of novelist Michael Peterson in his wife Kathleen’s staircase death in Durham.
A quick check-in with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission showed that while barred owls are fiercely territorial, this time of year an attacker is less likely defending a nest and more like an owlet learning to hunt.
Novice owls looking for food
As full-grown predators, a barred owl can capture prey as large as an opossum. But as novices, they’re not great at identifying the proper meal, and they sometimes starve due to scarce meals or, as in this case, poor choices.
It also turns out that juvenile owls and rookie mobsters have an important trait in common: They get jittery around erratic behavior.
“Yelling, waving of arms, and running are interpreted as aggression by the owl,” Edwards warned in the neighborhood listserv, “which will make things worse.”
Instead, the proper defense against raptor swoops would be bike helmets, umbrellas or jogs during daylight.
One other caution Edwards, twice scratched, offers from bitter experience. Be sure to wash your wounds.
“Who knows where these talons have been?”
.png "image (1).png")
This story was originally published September 22, 2023 at 9:54 AM.