collective defense

[pkeeler]

Was sitting out on the deck reading BYC with the chickens in the yard (they free range) when a hawk swooped through. Chickens went nuts and ran for their bushes. Hawk alighted on one of the pine trees. The rooster started his alarm call/get out of there call, "ba ba ba bwack". This seemed to get the chickadees and nuthatches to come over and start chirping too. Then the blue jays came in and started swooping on the hawk. I've seen songbirds do that before, but didn't know the chickens were now plugged into the neighborhood network.

Meanwhile, one of my chickens was separated from the others and made a break for the flock. The hawk saw it but didn't look that interested in chasing. I think it was a red tailed hawk, maybe a cooper's hawk. It just kept preening itself. After watching all this, I decided I should step into the yard to let the hawk know people are in this yard (supposedly they are shy of hunting in near humans). When it saw me it moved off another 50 yards followed by the songbirds.

Chickens are still in the big bush (mountain laurel), but they were due for a nap anyway. Very cool.

 

[Buster]

Nature has it's ways of protecting it's own. In my opinion, these are built-in defense mechanisms. Neat that you were able to watch it first hand.

 

[redhen]

thats a neat story!!..now you have me thinking...last night around dusk..i actually went outside because the birds and squirrels were making such a ruckus in the trees around my yard...the squirrels were running from tree to tree...making that chittering noise they do..the birds were also real noisy..flying from tree to tree...when i looked though i didnt see anything...but i was thinking that "something" was around...i was looking for a fisher though, that has been in the trees before..who knows what it was..creeped me out though..i put my ducks in thier pen just to be safe.....so yeah.....nature has a way of giving us a warning sometimes!..

..Wendy