I think it had much more to do with the white toque bobbing along in the pre-dawn darkness, it just happened to be attached to something much larger. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I had a bird swoop down and try to take the button off of the top of my baseball cap once. It must have thought it was some sort of insect, probably a beetle. It really startled me.
Unless you've had it happen to you it sounds crazy, but once you've experienced it becomes totally believable.