Beware the Headless Hawk Phenomenon!

Posted on 19. Aug, 2009 by Paul Burwell in Everything, Wildlife

It was last August when I received a tip about a nest of Swainson’s Hawks.  These cooperative hawks set up their nest at the back of a commercial shopping plaza that boarded a large field.  What was really cool about this nest is that it was easily accessible for photography purposes from the back parking lot and located right in the city of Edmonton.  So, I scouted out the area and oblivious to the curious stares of the shopping plaza employees, I was able to photograph the birds from my vehicle to my hearts content.

But, I soon noticed a disturbing trend.  Although the birds at first appeared healthy and full of life, I soon started to notice a number of birds that appeared, and there is no easy way of saying this, well, they appeared headless.  There I said it.  Headless hawks. In Edmonton.  Headless Hawks in Edmonton!!!

Here’s the first headless hawk I photographed and presented for your examination.  And I swear on my copy of Scott Kelby’s The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book for Digital Photographers that I DID NOT use Photoshop or any other photo editing tool to remove these birds’ heads.  This is, in fact, the way they appeared straight through my viewfinder and onto the camera’s sensor and I will be happy to supply the RAW files to any interested individuals or government agencies.  (Remember you can click on the images to view larger versions of the files.)

Headless Hawk - Sample 1

As a perfectly rationale and sane wildlife photographer, I was of course, very concerned.  Was it my presence that caused this hawk to lose its head?  Was I witnessing some sort of previously unknown phenomenon whereby a seemingly healthy and beautiful hawk could spontaneously lose its head?  Was it perhaps a case of alien abduction?

I went home troubled and disturbed and no, that’s not my regular state of being.  Hoping against hope that this was a one-time occurrence, I returned the following day.  Guess what?  It happened again!  Okay, maybe I could live with this happening one day, but with this happening on different days, I really started to freak out a little.  Here’s the second headless hawk for your examination.

Headless Hawk - Sample 2

When I got home I carefully checked my equipment and concluded that the equipment couldn’t have possibly have caused this travesty against nature.  Later I considered my actions.  Had my presence and observation of these hawks somehow caused some sort of quantum mechanical paradox akin to Schrödinger’s cat paradox?  Was I somehow drifting between our world and a parallel universe where hawks live their lives headless?  If that were the case, how the heck do they eat or even see where they’re flying?  Maybe it was aliens.  Because if you know anything at all about aliens, you know of their tendancy to steal bovine innards.  Was this a new attack on the wildlife of our planet?  It was the final headless hawk though that really got me thinking (you are of course free to doubt the veracity of my thinking).

Headless Hawk - Sample 3

I noticed this last hawk had a metal band on one leg.  Was this a method aliens had devised for marking these birds?  Some sort of signal to other aliens that they’d already abducted this birds head.  Was it some sort of message saying “Nothing to see here, move along and find your own hawk’s head”?  Maybe the metal band was some sort of stabilisation system to tether the hawk to its perch until its head was returned?  Was the government experimenting with these hawks?  Are they working on a plan to remove human heads too?  For what purpose?  What’s going on???

Colour me baffled.  I never did solve the mystery of the headless hawks.  I’ve done a lot of photography in the last year and have photographed a ton of raptors and have yet to see a reoccurrence of this frightening episode.  Maybe you’ve got a theory on what’s going on.  I’d love to hear it.

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Tags: alien, conspiracy, government, hawk, headless, phenomenon