Just now, not ten minutes before I sat down to write this, I saw from my office the flash of chickens. They were running in circles, and not making a lot of sound, never a good sign. They caught my eye twice in as many minutes, so I stood and looked down to see what all the fuss was about, that’s when I saw a flash of grey and a wingspan altogether too large for a chicken.

“Something’s trying to kill the chickens!”

I shouted

“Right now! I think it’s a hawk.”

I ran down the stairs, thought about grabbing my .22 and just stopped a hawk from killing a hen. He flew off and landed on our compost to stare daggers at me. We were perhaps eight feet apart and it was clear to me that he could royally fuck my day up if he wanted to. I had my hand on my knife, which is insane.

Can you imagine fighting a hawk with a knife?

After he flew off in disgust I saw the deep gouges his talons had left in the dirt, it was a squarely violent thing.

It occurs to me that it’s pretty cool that those chickens have a human watching over them. An animal far, far smarter and more capable than they are ready to sprint down to their defense wielding tools they cannot even begin to understand or fight back against. Still, we lose chickens all the time, I’m far from their ultimate defense.

In a bit of post-battle research, it sounds like black chickens will keep hawks at bay because they think they’re crows, and crows and hawks hate one another. Since we’ve lost so many chickens, we’re going to need more, and I think they’ll be black.

I wouldn’t have shot the hawk, even if I had the gun.