Washingtonians

[SadieSue]

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Beautiful but scary. Yes, I typically listen to our wild birds for alarms, check the trees, (we are surrounded by giant firs on all sides of the yard) and watch for movement in the branches when I'm home. So now I'm thinking more and more that everyone had just better stay locked up for the next week. Poor girls.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

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I see Bald Eagles here at least once or twice a week, and much more often in February and March, but the only times I've seen them land have been when they were picking through the waste hay for nest lining. There's a lot of good fishing near me, and they will always prefer spawned-out salmon to chickens (although the ones that nest up by the Capitol have specialized in gulls and geese, and I watched one try to take sleeping Trumpeter Swans up at the Skagit once).

There's a pond 1/2 mile from my house (and a river that runs behind both) where people dump their unwanted ducks...the eagles make quick work of them, and ODFW stocks the pond twice a year...easy meals make for eagles that stick around.

Yeah, the Lacey Community Park near me has a stocked no-license fishery for children under 12 and their parents, which the Baldies and Ospreys view as catering. In addition there's carp in Long Lake which seem impervious to attempts at eradication, and healthy chum and silver salmon runs and a recovering sockey run in Woodland Creek- plus silvers in the Little McCallister, and all the runs in the Nisqually, which is five miles away. Well satisfied raptors aren't much of a problem; the Redtails haven't paid much attention to the chooks, because they prefer hares and rodents and there are plenty of those. Bird hawks- Coopers, Sharpshin, and Goshawks- and Falcons are the things I worry about most with chickens, along with GHOs (a pair of them wiped out the remnants of Mom's huge flock of free ranging wild-type bantams in about eighteen months) and to a minor extent Barn Owls after fuzzballs.

ALL of those are far behind raccoons and coyotes, though.

 

[Mia_]

I woke up this morning to my chickens screaming. There was something out there!
As soon as they saw me they shut up. I looked and listened. The elderly neighbor lady was throwing glass bottles into her recycling bin.

I looked around some more and the gap under the board fence that I put plastic chicken wire over and then a decorative cement block on, the block was moved and two of the boards were pulled away from the bottom cross piece. Maybe I was not woken up over nothing.

 

[Kaneke]

hmmm -- sounds like we need to be somewhat more alert

we have bald eagles in the big fir trees that edge our neighborhood to the north, along the power canal, but they seem to prefer to hunt over the livestock quarantine facility just north of that, which includes some marshy areas where redwing blackbirds sing ... or over the river which is another quarter mile or so, north, at this point

redtail hawks too, though I would expect them to go after the rabbits, rodents, possums, and squirrels down the hill too

haven't seen any owls, just lots of bats (we have a bat house attached to the hangar out back)

I suspect predators tend to avoid us because of loud barking by our dogs and a lot of "solid evidence" all over the yard ... cat spray too ...

(the cats pretty well clear out the mice, rats, moles, and voles that dare to come on the property)

deer go after the roses in my neighbor-to-the-west's yard (not so much now that they put up a seven foot chain link fence with barbed wire atop), and the fallen apples and pears in my-neighbor-to-the-east's, though I've been picking up a lot of those and giving them to the chickens, who make short work of them .. neither of them has a dog, but now the next-further neighbor to the east has acquired a very bark-y dog

I suspect my third neighbor to the west will be easier pickings; his hens free range unattended all day (though they have lots of large construction equipment to hide under); ours are either in the tarp-covered run, in the chicken tractor, or we are sitting right beside them supervising when they free range, for half an hour or so

if I can train Roxy to be a livestock guard dog, that will be even better -- but while she is pretty much mature (about 2-1/2), I suspect it will take a LOT of training ... and DS may not take the time to keep up with that (technically Roxy will be HIS dog, we're just temporarily minding her)

no bears that we know of, no cougars; we do have bobcats but know about this only from the occasional halfbreed kitten; a couple of neighbors have loaded .223s to take care of the occasional coyote

 

[Chickielady]

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Amen!!

But that isn't the half of it. Even within WA state, on our very own peninsula, there are cities of people who, when a Bald Eagle flies by, they get all joyous and in awe as if they just saw a Unicorn. I'm talking cities like Port Angeles, who you'd think have plenty of Eagles, but, I guess not. People there celebrate them like they lived in the Midwest or something.

Try going to Neah Bay.

They are WORSE than crows.

Ben Franklin wanted the Wild Turkey chosen for our National Bird.
A smart, beautiful functional bird.
But everyone else wanted the Bald Eagle.
Bummer.
And you are so correct Illia!!!

 

[Kaneke]

Quote:
Beautiful but scary. Yes, I typically listen to our wild birds for alarms, check the trees, (we are surrounded by giant firs on all sides of the yard) and watch for movement in the branches when I'm home. So now I'm thinking more and more that everyone had just better stay locked up for the next week. Poor girls.

thanks, Dana, for protecting the grandchicks ...

I think you're wise to keep them cooped while you're gone .. just warn your neighbors that Ms. Loudmouth is only letting off steam temporarily ....

maybe the cabbage-on-a-rope trick will keep them occupied for a few days

 

[Chickielady]

Take Note my friends:

I would love all of you to be find a way to watch the program "Earth 2100" on the History Channel some time today.
It is a long program, made by alot of Earth scientists..........and I believe every word of it.

Seen the program about the recent rat explosion in Austrailia?
Hordes, Billions of rats devastated crops & actually had to resort to cannibalize their own numbers for food.and soon died off.
It will happen to us one day.
Seen "Soylent Green" ? One of my favorite Movies, along with "Enemy Mine" also very good, see them when you can.
They will all change your perspective of this "wonderful Unicorn land" we have.
The world is already starving, and they all want to come here..(or in Europe, to England) and they are coming...by droves.
OK, I am off to go shoot my new pop gun.

 

[Illia]

I should so get a bumper sticker about the Wild Turkey as the national symbol/bird.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

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I myself prefer Jack Daniel's.

 

[PitterPatterPalace]

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I live in Edmonds and would consider selling 2-3 of our girls.
PM or email me for details. I'll be delivering our first child soon so our lives will be very hectic.