Nature Calls

We lost another member of our "flock" this Monday morning.
We arose on that beautiful morning to the music of our guest Colton, playing his guitar and singing. Twas quite the peaceful beginning! Shortly before breakfast was on the table, my precious husband stood next to me starring out the kitchen window with a rather perplexed expression on his handsome face. "What is that chicken doing?" he queried. Standing on tip-toe next to him I strained to see just what our feathered friend was up to. After several seconds of intense searching I saw a mass of tan moving strangely in the tall grass. "Is that a chicken?" "What is that?" "It's too big for a chicken." And then, the fateful declaration, "It's a hawk!"
Sure 'nuf, there was a huge hawk in our chicken/duck pen and it seemed to be rather intently enjoying breakfast!
Sunday night when David had gone out to check the chickens and ducks, he hadn't been able to find Jessica, our female Runner duck. Jessica and George, our Runner drake, were typically together. But it appeared that on this night she'd decided to nest outside of their shelter.
After realizing that there was a hawk in the pen, David hurried off to retrieve something to at least scare the hawk away. Meanwhile, Colton and I stood at our window post excitedly watching the beautiful bird of prey. We like to have a pictoral documentation of some things, so I grabbed our little camera in hopes of catching the culprit! Windows aren't always the cleanest of things so I attempted to open it to get my shot. Unfortunately, when I almost had the window open enough to get the picture that I wanted, it squeaked. The hawk tore out his bite and took a hasty look toward us. In an instant, breakfast was over, he spread his massive wings and departed. Colton hollered to David to tell him that it was flying away while I hollered my apologies for scaring him away. It was the brightest Red Tailed Hawk Colton and I had ever seen! David ran on outside as it flew up and circled back taking one last wistful look at breakfast.
Poor Jessica. Poor George. Poor us, no duck eggs now! And George now acts like a chicken! He'll walk around with the chickens and scratch and peck like they do! He has also decided that he's much better off sleeping in the chicken coop with them than out in his shelter! Poor guy, he needs a new lady friend!
Down feathers anyone?
This is off the internet, our guy had a lot more feathers on his legs, but this gives you an idea!And here's what left of our outdoor flock. George is the duck by the water, Ingrid is the brown hen, Strut is the rooster, and Cluck is the crazy white hen.
We're so thankful for our fowl! We have so much fun watching and working with them and getting to see all of the funny things God's creation does! Thank you Lord for the opportunity to have chickens, ducks, and hawks!