Backyard Scare Part 2

Last week I shared about a backyard scare in our yard with a hawk. My husband was home to take care of things and bring calm to the situation, but this week I had to handle a similar situation alone.

I looked out my backdoor and I saw a hawk on our deck. The deck is where we keep our bird feeder and we always have plenty of visitors. I grabbed my phone so that I could take a quick picture that I hoped would help me identify the hawk and then immediately went to scare the bird away. As I took the picture, that is when I noticed it had some kind of prey. Unfortunately it was one of our house sparrows. As it flew away, it dropped the bird on the deck.

Poor thing never had a chance.

It felt a bit traumatic for me to see the hawk with its prey. I take ownership of all the birds that come to our yard and I hate when anything bad happens to them. As I walked around the yard, many birds started coming out of their hiding places, but my main priority was my chickens.

I first looked under the deck where the chickens usually hang out and did not see them. I started looking around and calling for them with a bit of panic. I finally heard our Red Star and found the chickens hiding near the back door.  I was so focused on the hawk that I did not see the girls as I walked past them.

I texted my husband the picture of the hawk and it shook him up to think about this predator going after the chickens and terrorizing them. Because of the location of the chickens, it seems possible that they did see the hawk with its prey. I spent time trying to calm them down. Our Red Star was pretty vocal about everything after the hawk left.  I was constantly checking the yard to make sure the hawk was not coming back. It a couple of hours before the chickens were willing to  come out and play.

My husband has plans to try to deter anymore hawks from entering our yard. I hate seeing our girls scared and I want my backyard to be a safe haven for our chickens and our other bird friends. If we lost a chicken to a hawk, it would hit us pretty hard. I wondered if it might have been a Red-shouldered Hawk, but unfortunately the picture is too dark for me to tell.  Whatever it was, I just hope this is the last time we meet.