Today a blogger decided to have jerk chicken and mac-n-cheese for lunch at an East Village restaurant. He went inside, grabbed a seat, and seconds after his food was served, a hawk swooped in and landed on his plate.

As you can tell from the photo at left, the poor blogger, "D.Billy," didn't even get to crack the top on his can of Pepsi One when the feathered beast flew in through the open door and dipped its razor-sharp talons into his lunch. He writes:

I executed what could only have been a remarkably awkward yell-and-dodge maneuver, and turned around to see it standing on my two-piece-with-side-and-soda combo, just chilling and looking out the window wistfully, as though a Sarah McLachlan song were playing in its head.

The hawk just sat there for a little while, getting jerk BBQ sauce all over its talons and looking all emo, until it was spooked by the restaurant's delivery guy walking in, whereupon it shot past all of us into the kitchen. The counter guy, the delivery guy and I heard a few pots clanging as we debated calling animal control versus just trying to shoo it back out the door, when one of the cooks who was back there caught the hawk with his bare hands, and walked it back outside.

In case you're wondering what the name of the restaurant is that this happened at, it's a place called Birdies located on First Avenue. Yeah.

What the hell is going on with birds in this God-forsaken town? First we have terrorist geese taking down commercial jets, now we have killer hawks ruining our tasty jerk chicken lunches! Perhaps the city needs to send their geese-gassing death squads downtown to eradicate the hawks as well? Hell, why stop there—Why not throw the pigeons and the sparrows into the gas chamber as well? Everything with wings must die!

Excuse Me Waiter...There's a Large Bird of Prey in My Soup [And I'm Not Lying]
City Rounds Up Geese For Gas Chamber [New York Post]