HOLY €#%=¥&@!!!!!! Literally just had a super close call with a large hawk at around 7:30 this morning. I was still half asleep, but the encounter totally woke me up and made my heart pound like crazy.
Walnut, my POL pullet (SF x EO-Basque), was standing near our larger veggie bed. I was walking towards her direction. She started freaking out and I saw a blur in front. I stepped towards the blur, which dove towards the corner where Walnut was previously standing. It missed and was trying to push off the welded wire frame over the veggie bed. It knocked the wire frame off, and when the wings spread it was only about 3 ft from slapping my face. Am so glad I decided not to get closer in my frantic attempt to shoo it away. It was HUGE!!! Large body and large wingspan of at least 5'! I'm guessing it was a red-tailed hawk.
This is Walnut. She got quite a scare, but she's okay. Hopefully her EO genetics and the fact that she was raised by a SFH broody, another landrace breed, helped her alertness and escape. Lol.
In pretty sure the hawk is a "repeat customer," because he knew the best way in which to attack and exit the yard and the bird/hawk net stretched over part of the yard. He navigated without any problems whatsoever.
He came from the trees or poles behind the roofline and flew towards the long veggie bed.
Walnut was standing in this corner of the bed. Hawk totally knocked the welded wire frame back.
Too bad I didn't get a pic or video of the majestic (and scary) hawk. Now we have to add changing up the scenery a little to our long DIY to-do list. I think I'll start by hanging CDs or some shiny ribbon on the edge of the net where all the resident Hawks (we mainly get Coopers) are now entering for their attack. They've been coming from the same angle for the last couple of months. The me t has been up for about a year. We know the risks of free ranging out chickens all day, and I think their happiness is worth the risk, especially since we've gone through such lengths to try to protect them. So far, the score is like Chickens/us: 50, Hawks: 0. I know Hawks will score one day. We'd hate to lose one, but that's part of Mother Nature.
Exocita! Your babies are ADORABLE!!! I'm so glad for you!
@sol2go. The hawk wasn't trying to dislodge the cage. It was using it as a wall to push off back into flight. The hawk didn't have enough room to take off when I made a move towards it, so I think it also used the wire veggie cage to change directions
Good luck with your prevention methods! The hoops sound like a novel idea. We are thinking of getting some potted trees to put in the spot where they are entering. I already planted a lemongrass in another area close to their favorite hangout to provide extra places to hide.
ETA: we had another hawk scare yesterday around 6pm. I was outside working on our greywater pond when my rooster and his cockerel offsprings sounded the alarms. A hawk smaller than the morning attack landed on a telephone pole behind the property. It sat there and stalked the chickens for over 20 minutes. It flew away, but another 20 minute later, passed overhead again in a flyby (at least I think it was the same one).
