Watch: Woodinville owl steals hat from runner on Paradise Valley Trail Watch: Woodinville owl steals hat from runner on Paradise Valley Trail

An owl, likely a Barred Owl, has been aggressively swooping at visitors on the Paradise Valley Conservation Area trails near Woodinville, with one runner capturing video of the bird snatching his cap off his head. This was not the runner’s first encounter; his previous run-in sent him to urgent care, prompting Snohomish County Parks to post warning signs.

WOODINVILLE, Wash. – You may get a hoot out of this story.

An owl in Woodinville has been swooping at unsuspecting visitors on the Paradise Valley Conservation area trails. One local resident says he captured video of one of the prime suspects in the act. 

What they’re saying:

When Nathan Kuchta goes running on the Paradise Valley Conservation Trail, he often wears a cap. 

“This is the only running hat I have,” said Kuchta.

Woodinville owl hat thief

To a phantom menace that stalks the woods, the practical piece of running gear is more like bait.

This feathered avenger of the forest was captured on video, swooping in on Nathan’s head as if it were making a kill.

“I did not hear it at all. It was absolutely silent,” he said.

The bird stealing his pride, along with his cap.

“It snatched it right off the top of my head,” he said. “He just took my hat.”

Not giving a hoot about the theft, the owl took the hat sky high, and taunted him from the treetops.

Woodinville owl hat thief

“Are you serious?,” Nathan asked in the video. “The owl I felt like was kind of daring me to come after it.”

This wasn’t his first run-in with an owl on the trails in the nature area. He said he was on or near a portion of the Lloyd Trail when he was first attacked a week prior.

“The first time I ended up in the urgent care because it put some talons in the top of the head,” said Nathan. During that encounter, he noted he was not wearing his hat. That hat spared him from scratches a week later when an owl made another swoop.

Dig deeper:

After Nathan reported his owl encounters, Snohomish County Parks posted warning signs on the trail.

Aggressive owl warning Woodinville

After FOX 13 sent the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife the video, they identified the thief as a likely barred owl. 

Though owl encounters aren’t uncommon, many others who regularly use the trail say they haven’t seen anyone attacked before on camera.

“Oh yeah, that got you nice,” said one man who viewed Nathan’s video while we were interviewing him.

“Usually they are just sitting up in a tree and get a good pic of them. But I haven’t caught any coming down on me like that. That’s a great video,” he said.  

With a potentially wise old owl on the prowl, Nathan has a word to the wise; perhaps it’s best to wear a hat, or even a hard hat on the Paradise Valley trail for now.  He says it protected his head from the owl’s talons.

“The second time it felt like an owl booped me on the top of my head instead of punching me,” he said, adding that the hat protected him from scratches.   

Fortunately for Nathan, the winged assailant eventually dropped his hat. 

“Are you going to swoop me again?,” he asked as he went to retrieve it.

Mother nature provided a distraction so he could snag it. Another owl appeared on scene and the two birds appeared to start tussling, flying further back into the woods. 

“Oh, there’s two of them!,” he exclaimed on video.

Now that Nathan knows you can’t spell owl without the word “ow”, he started a “RunFromOwls” YouTube channel to celebrate his special interactions with nature. 

“I feel lucky it happened a couple times, or very, very unlucky. I’m not sure,” said Nathan.

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The Source: Information in this story came from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and original FOX 13 Seattle reporting and interviews.

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