Woke up this morning, went to make coffee, looked out the window, and saw a HUGE HAWK hanging out INSIDE my chicken coop! Unacceptable. (Hawks eat chickens). So, I immediately headed out to battle the talon-wielding beast, armed with:
- A shovel. My weapon of choice for self defense…not to be used to harm the hawk in any way, but to keep him from pecking my eyeballs out.
- Peabody. Not because he would ever even dream of harming a bird, but because I wanted Team Joy to look really scary. This hawk was huge.
- A camera. Because it didn’t happen if it wasn’t caught on film.
So out into the chicken coop we went. There were feathers everywhere. Not a good sign. I found two silkies hiding in their nest boxes and left them tucked in there. The rest of the chickens were out in the pasture hiding under the mesquite tree. The hawk buzzed around over my head a few times, just to let me know he was not afraid of me, my dog or my shovel. I opened up the coop door and tried chasing the hawk out, but he just hung upside down from the ceiling so his razor-sharp beak was the closest thing to me and hissed. I took out my camera to get a photo of this, and THE BATTERY WAS DEAD! : (
Peabody and I were eventually able to chase him out the door, unharmed. I found the source of the feathers – an injured dove that had been hanging out in the coop for the past few days. All of the chickens are on edge, but fine.
Since I wasn’t able to get any photos, I took the liberty of illustrating the event for you. *Hawks in this drawing may actually be smaller than they appear.
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