Hawk in the hen house

A few years back, before my neighbor's dog came over and killed all my chickens, I got up one morning to greet them good day, as I did every sunrise, and there wasn't a peep from the pen.

"Uh-oh," I said to myself. When there's no talking in the hen house, something's wrong. I started talking to the girls, letting them know I was approaching, but still nothing but utter silence. When I opened the door not a chicken was in sight. "Oh, no!" I said, with considerably more concern

Then I saw them, all hunched in the far corner of the hen house, one piled on top of the other - and if chickens could look terrified, they did.

"What's going on, ladies?" I asked, but not one let out a peep. Well, there was nothing in the pen that looked like a threat, so I went out into the yard - and there it was: An adult male great-horned owl, standing on top of one of my prize Buff Orpingtons, just about to swallow the hen's head in it gaping maw.

"OWL!" I shouted, "What do you think you're doing? That's one of my best layers!"

The owl, surprised at this inappropriate interruption to supper, flew off in disgust, hooting at me from the roof of my old camper.

The owl eating my prize Buff Orpington was OK by me. The dog that killed all my chickens did it for the fun of it. The owl, on the other hand, needed the chicken for food - because all the loose cats and dogs in the area had killed all the owl's natural food. So I tossed the dead hen up on the roof of the camper, and the next day nothing was left but feathers.

I'm telling you this little tale because last Friday I received a call from one of my favorite people, Brent McGregor, who keeps chickens. Brent's always ready for a good laugh or sharing wonderful pictures of a natural history moment.

"Jim," he began, "I have a hawk in my hen house that can't get out."

See what I mean? Brent's always good for another look into the World of Nature that we would never anticipate. (If you saw the Oregon Field Guide's 20-year celebration program with Brent, and his side-kicks dragging the OPB film crew through the glacier caves on Mt. Hood, then you know what Brent's life is like.)

Later on he sent me this email with some splendid photos of a juvenile Cooper's hawk, hanging head-down like a bat, and this message:

"The chickens were all cackling like a predator was amongst them, so I hurried over and saw that a young Cooper's hawk had somehow found it's way through the chickenwire walls and ceiling of the enclosure and then had made his way inside the log chicken house - and couldn't find its way out.  

"There was a chicken in there with it that had somehow gotten into the small wire cage on the floor that we use for babies, and it was squawking away while the hawk was trying it's best to get free.  

"Before freeing it, I got a few shots. Then when it finally found its way to the outside pen, it flew around and then hung upside down by the wire!

"Once free, the hawk flew to a juniper limb and sat there for 10 minutes, probably wondering how it had gotten itself into such a mess."

OK, here's the way I think it all went down. First, the hawk is a "bird-of-the-year," that is, it hatched in spring of 2013. It probably had a good life with its parents, but they finally got tired of it free-loading and said, "We're outta' here," and the kid was on its own.

Oh, sure, there may have been some training in the hawk's growing up; but as it is with almost all juveniles, if there is a way to get into some kind of trouble or mischief, they'll make it happen.

My hunch is the hawk was after a house sparrow (or some other chicken-feed-eating bird) and when the bird/prey flew into the hen house to escape, the hawk went right in after it.

Accipters, the tribe of hawks to which the Cooper's belongs, are noted for their aerial gymnastics. When pursing prey they can fold their short, blunt wings right against their body, and steering with that long tail, follow a bird right into the undergrowth, thicket - or hen house. The gap in two-inch chicken wire was just another "thicket" to that small hawk.