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Parents will do anything to protect their children.

And the cooper’s hawks living high above Eighth Street South are no exception.

Naples officials roped off a portion of the parking lot on Eighth Street South and Sixth Avenue South after passers-by complained that the birds were swooping down and attacking them. The decision to restrict access comes about two weeks after city officials said they believed the eggs hatched.

“All you can do is stay away,” said Mike Bauer, the city’s natural resource manager. “They’ll be gone in a couple of weeks.”

The city placed caution tape around the front portion of the parking lot, and Bauer said he was at the site Thursday morning posting signs urging people to steer clear.

Assistant City Manager Roger Reinke said the police department received several complaints about birds attacking Wednesday.

Gary Turner made one of those calls. The 48-year-old Naples resident was attacked while walking from Fifth Avenue South to Captain Kirk’s Fresh Seafood Market, where he works.

Turner said he was crossing Sixth Avenue South when something drilled him in the back of the head.

“I knew what it was immediately, (but) I never saw the hawk,” he said. “I’m fine. It was no big deal.”

He noticed his head was bleeding when he got to work, but said the injury wasn’t serious enough to go to the hospital. Turner said he called the police department on his way to Bonita Springs, and by the time he got back downtown a few hours later, the parking lot was already blocked off.

“They’re taking this pretty seriously,” Turner said.

This isn’t the first time hawks have attacked residents. In May 2007, Cooper’s hawks on Broad Avenue South and Fifth Street reportedly attacked at least a half-dozen people.

There is an active nest near that same site, but there haven’t been any complaints about the birds, Reinke said.

The Eighth Street South birds have been at the center of a month-long discussion regarding a parking garage planned for the same site.

The city discovered the birds in April, just days before work on downtown’s newest parking garage was scheduled to begin. Work was put on hold until Naples City Manager Bill Moss deemed that the construction would not be hazardous to the nest.

Moss gave crews the go-ahead to move forward with noninvasive work on the garage on April 7. Construction crews moved the test site 160 feet away from the nest, and the work wasn’t expected to cause harmful noise or vibrations.

The birds are protected by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and Moss has said he had a “high level of confidence” that the work wouldn’t cause the pair of cooper’s hawks to abandon the nest.

Had the birds abandoned the nest, the city could have been in violation of the federal act, which carries a penalty of up to $5,000 and one year in jail.

Work on the parking garage is scheduled to resume on June 9 or when the birds fledge. Reinke said the city is on schedule to begin then, but will not start work until the birds leave.

Bauer said he expects the birds to stick around for another week or two. Earlier this month, he said the hawks generally stay around for 30 days after the eggs have hatched. But just because they fly the coop doesn’t mean they’re gone for good, since the birds often come back year after year to nest in the same place, he said.