Twas a dark and windy evening.
It was gusting over 15 miles per hour last Tuesday, and I probably should have checked to see if the door had blown closed on the chicken coop. Or, I should have checked before night fell.
When I went out to close the chickens, 6 were in the coop, and the other 12 were… elsewhere. When the door gets shut too early, then I have to go and find all the chickens and carry them into the coop because chickens, like me, mentally shut down after sunset. I can go through the motions, but in my head it’s just a large count down clock, ticking off the minutes until I can get in bed.
The chickens, finding a closed door between them and bed, I mean, roost, just went and settled in somewhere else.
As I walked across the yard and saw the closed door, my heart sank, knowing what I would be doing for the next 30 minutes. Hunting for chickens by flashlight. But tonight I was not doing this alone.
As I reached the door to the coop, I heard a rustle of feathers. Relieved, I was sure that the chickens had heard me walking over, and come running because they knew the door would be opened soon!
Instead, about 12 feet from me, an owl sat on top of one of my chickens, where it laid unmoving. The owl, let’s call him Jarvis, had slammed into the chicken where she sat roosting on the fence next to the coop, knocking the chicken down and stunning her. Instantly Jarvis tried to take off with the chicken in his claws, but the chicken weighed only a little less than he did.
Jarvis is a big owl. That is the only observation I managed to make while we had our staring contest. I stood there with my jaw swinging, trying to make sense of my newfound proximity to a large bird of prey.
I don’t know if Jarvis was at all concerned about a 5 foot tall biped, but he probably didn’t like the headlamp that I was wearing and, as it happened, was shining right into his face. Maybe he couldn’t tell who or what I was and he is currently telling stories about his Bigfoot sighting.
After my wits gathering closer around me, I took one menacing shuffle forward, towards the enormous bird with death claws, and he, rightly cowed by my very intimidating presence, declared me winner of the staring match and flew away.
I now turned my staring to the bird who was still lying there, unwilling to revive from the dead to see if she could out-stare me. I decided I should go and find all those birds before the owl did and then I could come back to the bird who’s life-status was unclear.
As I picked up the last bird out of the hay shed, I heard something approaching, and I turned to find the zombie chicken! She had gotten up and walked passed the coop, and seemed to be trying to go into the food shed, though the closed doors were not helping. I quickly deposited the very alive bird into the coop, and came back for our poor victim.
She, understandably, was skittish, and was not interested in my attempts to pick her up. So, I turned off my head lamp, and stood in the dark while I tried to stalk a black chicken. I was almost as good as Jarvis, but with the bonus of opposable thumbs and many many more pounds, I could actually pick up the chicken.
I checked her out quickly and put her back into the coop, where she leapt up to her roost and settled in for the night.
I was still unsure if I would find her alive in the morning, but she is healing from her wounds and I can only tell her apart from her sisters because of the uneven feathers. Don’t trust an owl to give you a haircut, they are very sloppy.