"I saw shadows behind me," said the mascot Kyle Lincecum.
First came the shadows, then the mascot says came the push.
"Then I turned around and he shoved me real hard," he said.
A couple of assailants took part.
"One was videotaping while the other was harassing me," Lincecum said.
The assailants got away. Consider though this is the fourth time the mascot has been attacked. Each one happened around this same Katy intersection.
"They just look like hellions and ruffians and they say, 'There's a big bird, I'm gonna get it,'" the mascot's owner Russ Vogel recounted. "Sometimes I don't think they're aware of whose inside and it's a person just like them."
It's a person like Lincecum, the man beneath the feathers, who refuses to give up his perch, or his job. No bye-bye birdie for him.
"It may have it's down but it also has its ups," Lincecum said. "Kids [and] people coming by and taking pictures with me."
The mascot will be back as a walking waving billboard, but this time, people like an area mattress dealer will be keeping an eagle eye on the big bird.
"I'm an avid bird watcher myself," said Mike Barnes.
