Hawk finds its way into birdcage, gets locked inside

PHOENIX - We're hearing from the valley woman who found a bewildering scene unfolding in her backyard. She discovered a hawk inside her bird cage!

Somehow, the hawk was able to open the door to the cage where the woman's two pet birds were sitting. Sadly, it didn't end well for one of those birds, but she was able to save the other one.

The birds' owner says that she has seen this hawk in the area for the last several days. The hawk was seen even sitting on a table looking at the birds, but she tells us that with this secured cage, she never thought her birds would be in danger.

"Last week, we were going grocery shopping and got rained feathers and I looked up at the lamp post and it was having a meal at the top of the lamp post at the end of the street," said Becky Griefer.

Around 9:30 a.m. on Monday, Griefer heard some noises in her backyard. When she went outside, she was shocked by what she saw. She found the hawk in her birds' cage. She says the hawk was caught by the foot, but every opening to the cage was still closed.

"It was amazement, I was like you're Houdini, how the heck did you get in there because it was all closed up. It was stuck by his foot at the top door here and later it popped it free when it got unstuck," she said.

Inside the cage were the family's blue parakeets, Petey and Snowy. Unfortunately, Petey didn't survive the attack. Griefer didn't hesitate, even with the hawk inside the cage to get Snowy out to safety.

"I just undid the cage and just slipped my hand in there real quick and got her. Never had any contact with the hawk at all."

Petey was Griefer's son's bird. She says although nothing will replace Petey, they hope to find another bird soon.

"There were some tears. He didn't go overboard or anything, but it will take a little while to get used to the idea, but we know how the natural world out here lives and we appreciate it quite a lot. We see them flying around the fields every once and a while and always really grateful to be able to experience that."