Pat Dollard

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A red-tailed hawk lost its choice seat behind home plate at Fenway Park today after the raptor scratched a middle school girl on a tour, drawing blood from her eyebrow.

The girl was in the upper deck behind home plate, some 40 feet from the hawk’s nest, where a single egg lay in an overhang near the press booth. The hawk had been perched on a railing and swooped at the girl with its talons extended. She was taken by ambulance to a local hospital.

“The girl is fine,” said Red Sox spokeswoman Susan Goodenow, who said the team followed up with the girl’s group from Memorial Boulevard Middle School in Bristol, Conn.

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“The nest and the egg were removed by the Boston Animal Rescue League at the direction of the director of Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife,” Goodenow said.

It was the second incident with a hawk in the park in the last two days. It has been common for the birds to take up residence in the stadium rafters in the off-season, dining on rats and mice when the park is quiet.

“When the season starts and there is lots of noise, they usually find a new home,” Goodenow said.

(Boston Globe)