A certain New York Yankee slugger should beware: A 13-year-old taking a tour of Fenway Park yesterday was attacked by a red-tailed hawk that swooped down from its nest, drawing blood from the girl's scalp.
Her name: Alexa Rodriguez.
"She's fine, a little shaken but OK," said Vince Jennetta, a teacher who chaperoned Rodriguez's trip from Memorial Boulevard Middle School in Bristol, Conn.
The eighth-grader was taken by ambulance to a local hospital and was treated for the small scratch on her scalp.
The 3 1/2-pound hawk, which has been building nests at Fenway since 2002, has always been chased out before Opening Day so that she and her mate could find a new home, said Tom French, assistant director of the state Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.
This spring the raptor used a brown-knit cap and twigs from trees on Yawkee Way to build a nest on a green overhang near the press booth above home plate. She laid a brown-speckled egg last week, but it rolled off the nest, wasn't properly incubated, and was no longer viable, French said.
Wildlife officials removed the egg and the nest yesterday after the hawk lashed out at Alexa.
Could it be an omen for Yankee Alex Rodriguez, who once got a catcher's mitt shoved in his face during a scuffle with Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek at Fenway in 2004?
"I deal in science, not mythology," French said, refusing to make any baseball predictions based on the feisty hawk. "Although you could say she has done a good job protecting her home plate."
Her name: Alexa Rodriguez.
"She's fine, a little shaken but OK," said Vince Jennetta, a teacher who chaperoned Rodriguez's trip from Memorial Boulevard Middle School in Bristol, Conn.
The eighth-grader was taken by ambulance to a local hospital and was treated for the small scratch on her scalp.
The 3 1/2-pound hawk, which has been building nests at Fenway since 2002, has always been chased out before Opening Day so that she and her mate could find a new home, said Tom French, assistant director of the state Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.
This spring the raptor used a brown-knit cap and twigs from trees on Yawkee Way to build a nest on a green overhang near the press booth above home plate. She laid a brown-speckled egg last week, but it rolled off the nest, wasn't properly incubated, and was no longer viable, French said.
Wildlife officials removed the egg and the nest yesterday after the hawk lashed out at Alexa.
Could it be an omen for Yankee Alex Rodriguez, who once got a catcher's mitt shoved in his face during a scuffle with Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek at Fenway in 2004?
"I deal in science, not mythology," French said, refusing to make any baseball predictions based on the feisty hawk. "Although you could say she has done a good job protecting her home plate."
