On the weekends I love to let the chickens roam while I sit and read a book in the backyard. I'll scan the skies for hawks and watch the birds and squirrels romp or make a nest. There has been much nest building lately. I don't know much about hawks, only that they like chicken. I thought hawk season was in the fall and that they feared humans.
This afternoon, while I was on the phone with a friend, I heard a familiar, low shrill. I don't know how long this noise was going on as I was concentrating on the phone conversation. After I heard the noise I became distracted and noticed that I felt uneasy. I felt uncomfortable as if I were being watched by something and when I looked around me I almost expected to see a giant, angry dog or a lion or some wild animal. Not logical but that was the feeling. I happened to look up and saw a hawk coming straight at me! I moved fast...screamed and threw the phone, then collected my hens from the ground (like they were cotton balls that had fallen on my bathroom floor) then ran and threw them into the coop saying, " Hurry, hurry, hurry" the whole time. It was easy to collect them as they were stiff and still in survival mode long before I heard the shrill. That shrill belonged to Twinkie. She made that same noise that day there was a hawk overhead. I thought that incident was close but I was wrong, I just had an extremely close encounter with a hawk. This aggressive hawk flew above me as I ran and I have never felt so scared before. After I threw the girls into the coop, I put my arms over my head and saw the hawk circle and leave.
I then noticed that there were birds flying just below it and in the trees but it wanted chicken. I was afraid of talons in my eyes or a sharp beak going through my skull. I saw The Birds, I know what can happen. I had that sensation of wanting to move faster but feeling like I was just operating in slow motion. I have never experienced that in waking life. I have had a few dreams where I am being chased by a wild dog or some huge, angry, wild animal and I try to seek coverage in my car or my home, only to find locked doors and fumbling for a key all the while growing more and more anxious, frightened and freaked out. I don't know how those dreams end.
I do hope that there isn't a nest nearby. I love watching hawks, from afar, as they glide in the sky, way, way above me. The wing span of this thing was impressive but my admiration is in retrospect, at the time it was scary. There is a rather large nest in one of the trees and I thought it belonged to a squirrel. However, I observed a squirrel just the other day running limb to limb until it came to the nest and then freaked out, running almost falling from the tree. It was funny but now I wonder if that could that have been a hawk Mr Squirrel saw or hawk eggs?
Looking up hawk and squirrel nests on Google images, I'm discovering that they look very much alike. Eek, horrors! Well, it could go either way. Time to break out the patio table umbrella and that chicken playpen thing I bought last fall. It protects the girls while they free range, I was hoping I could keep it in the shed.
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