Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[LozzyR]

Cloud. The FBF view.
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Cloud. The fluffy all over view.
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Cloud is looking healthy.

 

[Shadrach]

Wouldn’t this be easier? I’m kidding.View attachment 2881300

Hmm, most of my soils are from organic matter and I'm not convinced I need them any looser.

 

[Shadrach]

Cloud is looking healthy.

Yeah, disgusting isn't it.

 

[RoyalChick]

It cracks me up that you have a super fluffy now! I believe you like them more sleek; is that correct?

I was thinking the same. I have also spotted @Shadrach using emojis more than before.
Thank goodness he still lets rip with a strong perspective now and then or I would worry he had been taken by body snatchers!
​

 

[RoyalChick]

If there's any kind of raptor rescue/rehab center near you, they would be a great resource. Also look into some local bird watching groups. Experienced birders to go with are great! Some can even id by sound alone on every bird in the area.

Yes! The raptor rescue has a lot of educational outreach in the area so I will start there.

 

[Shadrach]

They do, at least in the Northeast. The only raptors that might hang around here, and only if they can eat, are eagles. Around here, they hang out at power station outlets (warm water, unfrozen, and fish gather there).

But like Snowy Owls, some far northern raptors will come south only a ways. Like Red Shouldered (I think) hawks will come south from Canada. I don't see them here ever really, only on bird trips in the winter that go further north to the Mohawk Valley. But our Red Tails, Sharp -Shinned, Coopers hawks, and Peregrine's and the Kestrels, don't stay around here, they definitely go further south for the winter.

So they are all likely passing by you too. And the young ones, inexperienced at hunting the fields and forests or usual ways, are starving and desperate. Experienced hawks might go both ways. If there's been good hunting and they've not been harassed they might try it. But generally Red Tails are cautious around people.

Yesterday the Hawkwatch counted 143 Red Tails coming through. Lots of Turkey Vultures too. Bald Eagles have been all through for the most part.

I had originally gone out to let the chickens out to forage beyond the moveable runs, and I would do my vocal exercises and chicken chores and watch them, when I found them fearful and hiding. So after giving them the sunflowers seeds I left them. Came back a while later, two were out getting pellets, so I sang again in there in the attached big wire run and they looked like it reassured them, and the other two came out of the coop but nobody had really any interest in going any further, even into where I was. Hazel ate pellets and drank (good) but stayed watchful. That's her in the back always with the neck up. But they all were pretty wary. It was so persistent I worried about a feral cat (our cat has indicated there's someone about) or a weasel and that's why I double-checked the electric fence. Maybe a hawk had been right over them in the trees. They are safe from hawks in both the wire runs, and safe in the aviary runs except if they are caught right next to the wall through the netting, relatively unlikely.

Butters' moltiness easy to spot on the left. She looks long-legged now, there's no feathers on her legs or belly, hardly. Popcorn in front, Peanut in the middle, Hazel in back. They were doing a lot of checking the coop door, in case they wanted to go up quickly.
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Everyone pecking around for any stray sunflower seeds while Hazel watches.
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Hazel and Popcorn conferring, Butters with head down, Peanut going to get a drink.
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Popcorn eating from the little cup feeder, Peanut and Butters head down, Hazel still watching.
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I know I've written this before, but I think they are gorgeous. Their faces have that almost jungle fowl look which I really like yet they are softer looking.

 

[RoyalChick]

This is such an awesome post. Thank you! Yep, it’d that typical cal #2 I’ve been hearing lately. Red Tail Hawks (plus sharp shinned, Cooper’s, and red shouldered, as well as golden and bald eagles and great horned owls) live here, but some are more elusive than others!

Because I am unreliable identifying them in flight I go by the sound. Typical calls both #1 and #2.
Agree. Great post.

 

[BY Bob]

Here's a few quick tips that I use: Eagles are definitely day hunters, you will not see them in dim light or at night. Owls have blunt heads and your first impression is a small body relative to the length and breadth of the wings (like a bullet with wings too big for it). Eagles soar with their wings horizontal to the body, and from below it looks a lot like a paper airplane with squared-off rectangle wings, there's not much "point" to the wing tips. They are also very steady flyers. Vultures hold their wings in a V-shaped dihedral (looking at it horizontally), and that makes them pretty unsteady in flight, so you see them kind of tippy with any cross-breeze or wind change, dipping one wing or the other.

Here's a good short page on the basics of the three types of "hawks"
https://www.audubon.org/magazine/fall-2021/look-introduction-identifying-raptors-flight

Here's all about our friend
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/red-tailed-hawk

The following is very cool, an animated map showing the migration patterns and dates for your chosen bird, here I put in Red Tail Hawk (@BY Bob and RC check out what PA looks like in early November). You might have to join ebird to see it? It is free. They have been collecting data from volunteer users and have gotten some really robust visualizations of it now.
https://ebird.org/science/status-and-trends/rethaw/abundance-map-weekly

I misspoke earlier - it's the Rough-Legged Hawk, not the Red-Shouldered Hawk, that for the Northeast is mostly north and we don't see it except seasonally
https://ebird.org/science/status-and-trends/rolhaw/abundance-map-weekly

Holy cow. It looks like they arrive in November and stay all winter! That really aligns with my anecdotal observations. I live where hawks go to winter!

Here is a snapshot of Nov 2. Crazy.

 

[Shadrach]

Good night.

I only came in too moan about that email.

Blow them I'll learn here

I find it interesting that this thread now has a fairly wide range of experience in chicken keeping. Given Ribh with her nutters posts here and MJ with her small flock experiences as well a lot of the problems are reasonnably well covered.
I haven't seen many problems where the ER regulars have come up with better advice.

 

[BY Bob]

I have learned one thing over the years. (If I’m out of corn, I’m out of friends)

You are so "corny" how do you ever run out?