Exclusive: Man who served as landing pad for Taima the Seahawk says talons didn’t hurt

His face has been everywhere, but so far it’s only been guesses from the likes of David Letterman and others as to what was going through a Seahawk fan’s mind when Taima the Seahawk landed on his head Sunday.

But Bob Tedlock, the man Taima picked among thousands to serve as a perch, finally agreed to talk about his experience exclusively on KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show.

Bob told Monson he noticed early on that the hawk was deviating from its traditional pre-game flight path.

“He kept swirling around in wide loops, much higher up in the stands than we had ever seen him. And all of a sudden, I don’t know if he was tired, but he started getting down closer and closer to my wife and I, and all of a sudden the next thing I knew he came plopping down on my head.”

While hawks have sharp talons, Bob said luckily the hawk landed flat-footed. “You could see the talons on his feet, but the talon wasn’t really out doing anything to us.”

Plus, as Dori noted, Bob had a great head of hair for such a landing. “Thank you. It’s all mine,” he replied.

Bob also kept his composure. Many remarked on how calm he appeared even with the big bird on his head. He said the real alarm came when he saw the hawk coming, and he tried to duck to get out of way.

“You thought ‘He really won’t land on me, really,'” said Bob, “but he did.”

Bob’s wife tried to nudge the bird off his head and it then landed on the shoulder of the woman in front of him.

Monson was amazed watching the footage that even after what could have been a scary first encounter, Bob reached out again to touch the bird.

“The bird was absolutely scared to death,” Bob explained. “He was concerned I think about all the people around him. He was trembling. He was all upset and when I started stroking the back of his neck you could see that he was better. Then we just kept him doing that until the trainer finally came up into the stands.”

Bob said he had no previous experience calming a hawk, but he thought the bird picked a pretty good place to land, considering.

“It was one of those things where it happened and you said ‘well I guess if had to happen, it should have happened to me’ because I certainly wasn’t afraid of the bird, but I really did worry about him,” he said, adding the woman who served as a second fan perch was a good option too.

“The neat part is the woman in front of me was a little afraid also but she owns a cockatoo or something like that, so she’s kind of used to a bird perching on her shoulder.”