ROYAL OAK, Mich. – A Royal Oak family arrived at home to find it trashed, but nothing was stolen and no one was hurt.
"We walked in the front door and glass was shattered on the floor," Ann Duke said.
It wasn't exactly what she was expecting when she and her family got home.
"I thought we were robbed," Duke said. "I said, 'Oh my gosh, I think we've been robbed."
The family had been away for four days. Their house was freezing cold and many of their antiques were broken.
"I thought that the cat had knocked the lamp over when I walked into the dining room," Duke said. "All of the candlesticks on the table were all on their sides and everything on the windowsills were on the floor."
When Duke's daughter glanced into the family room she couldn't believe her eyes. Perched on a mid-century lamp was a red-tailed hawk, who looked just as surprised to see them as they were to see it.
"The bird opened its wingspan to the 50 inches or whatever I guess that they are, and then we thought, 'Oh, my God. What are we going to do?'"
The family called Animal Control, 911 and a pest control company, but nobody would help.
"That's how we knew it had been in the house for a couple days, because there were a lot of bird droppings," Duke said.
As it turns out, their feathered friend flew through two panes of glass and a screened window to get inside. They eventually shooed it out the same way it came in.
Duke said she thought maybe the hawk was trying to send a message.