At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land.
"We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute," Sture told The Associated Press on Monday. "I'm trying to think what's in its mind."
The bird then attacked Sture five more times Thursday, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier's face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway over the last week, including an assault on a toddler Saturday that required the child to get stitches.
The golden eagle - common in Norway and the Scandinavian country's second-largest bird of prey, with a wingspan of about 2 meters (6.5 feet) - typically eats smaller animals, as well as foxes and sheep. The toddler and the bird's other victims needed stitches and medication for deep gouges. The bird was killed after the attack on the small child.
The golden eagle "likely had a behavioral disorder" that prompted the aggression, Alv Ottar Folkestad, an eagle expert with BirdLife Norge, told the AP on Monday.
