Nancy Mcallister said the attack happened on one of the forestry roads in the Three Mile Hill area on Friday, when a large bird swooped past her.
She believed it was a kea or a kaka, and it was entertaining at first.
"But then I suddenly felt claws or a beak — unclear which — smack the back of my head.
"It was bloody terrifying.
"I screamed. The dogs looked at me like, ‘what is wrong with you?’
"For the next 20 minutes, I became a low-budget Jedi, walking with a long stick waving over my head while constantly scanning the trees."
At one point the bird turned and came flying straight at her face, wings fully spread "kamikaze style", she said.
"It came directly at me like a feathery heat-seeking missile.
"I used my Jedi move once more. Then, I did what any calm, brave outdoorsy woman would do — I ran.
"I’m from Canada and I always thought New Zealand was quite safe from wild animals.
"We’re used to mountain lions and bears."
Fortunately, the bird strike did not break her skin and she managed to make it back to her car without being struck again.
For now, she had stopped walking the tracks, but she wanted to warn other people using the area to be wary of encounters with the bird.
"I do feel privileged to have had contact with one of these native birds, because they’re quite rare."
The mystery bird was more likely to be an equally rare native bird — a New Zealand falcon (kārearea), he said.
"It’s not impossible that it was a kea or a kaka.
"We have had kea turn up at coastal Otago in the last couple of years, but very infrequently, and they tend not to stay very long," Mr Davies-Colley said.
"But they don’t swoop on people. A kaka might do a friendly swoop nearby to get a closer look at you, but a New Zealand falcon will try to hit you in the head.
"Based on the forestry location and the swooping behaviour at this time of year, it sounds exactly like a falcon.
"They’re really common in forestry and they really love to swoop people.
"They will hit you, and they will dig their claws in. Usually people aren’t injured, but sometimes they can be.
"And right now, they’re nesting."
He said falcons were becoming more visible in the Three Mile Hill area because a lot of predator control work had been done in the forestry blocks by Predator Free Dunedin and City Forests.
Falcons nest on the ground, and because there were fewer rats, stoats, possums and feral cats around to eat their eggs or chicks, it was a safer place for the birds to nest.
"Because of the predator control work that’s happening around Dunedin, encounters with cool birds like this are just becoming more common.
"It’s just really exciting that more people are getting these encounters across the city," he said.
