Hawks deliver go-away message to Canada Post

Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:33pm BST

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Two nesting hawks have managed to do what Canada's blizzards usually can't -- halt delivery of the mail to a few dozen homes in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Canada Post said it stopped delivering to 54 Moose Jaw homes after hawks swooped down on a letter carrier and after a supervisor who came in to inspect the area had to dive for cover. Later, another carrier was attacked two blocks away.

Mischelle Read, who lives on one of two blocks affected by the mail stoppage, saw the hawk swoop at a letter carrier in May before mail delivery stopped.

"It was a 'get-out-of-my-area type of a dive' clearly directed at (the letter carrier)," Read said.

But Read, who now picks up her mail at the post office, said her children continue to play outside. "It's not worrying me," she said.

Canada Post spokeswoman Sandra Sobko said the mail typically goes out even during blizzards, although Canada Post does halt delivery to specific addresses when dogs, wasps or other hazards threaten its carriers.

The Moose Jaw shutdown started in May and will last until the hawks leave their nest, she said.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel; Editing by Janet Guttsman)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE56J56N20090720?rpc=401&