I was minding my own business when one of my roosters went to Defcon 4. Roosters only go berserk for a few reasons:
- They feel like it.
- A hen is missing.
- A legitimate threat looms
- The dog is sleeping peacefully and that’s unacceptable.
- Space rays have shorted the rooster’s two brain cells.
I stepped out to investigate. The rooster was fluttering around the yard and squawking. It reminded me of the children’s story. Chickens (both roosters and hens) do indeed squawk exactly as if the the sky was falling. I get it.
I didn’t see any raccoons, hawks, or polar bears. What was the big deal? I noticed all the hens had abandoned him and were nowhere to be found. I joked aloud; “What’s the matter, not getting laid?”
Just then a hawk blasted out of nearby brush. My day had just gotten interesting.
The hawk had appeared only twenty feet away. It had been in a waist high bunch of thistles and my presence did nothing to spook it. It was closing like a missile. The rooster was toast!
I admire a good rooster; they’re obnoxious little monsters but they’ve got heart. This one was going to keep sounding the alarm and mortal danger wasn’t going to deter him. He’d probably go toe to toe with a wolverine if he thought it was necessary. He’d known the hawk was in the bushes yet he’d been warning the hens to clear out rather than wisely running for his life. I wonder if he’d deliberately made himself the target of the hawk’s interest to buy the hens’ escape? (Ladies, here’s an important tip. Just like roosters, a human male will face death bravely and without hesitation if that’s part of his job duties. Provided, just like a rooster, he gets unlimited sex with the job. I’m just sayin’.)
Rather than let the rooster meet his maker, I stepped between the hawk and his target. The hawk didn’t see me as a threat and aimed to make a run inches below my armpit. I made a pathetic wimpy squealing sound when I realized this. Half in defense of the rooster and half wondering what talons could do to a grown man, I started waving my arms and shouting. The hawk banked hard and circled an arm’s breadth away. The rooster, brave but not stupid, hauled ass around me too.
We did three rotations like that. Rooster scampering like death was after him. Death orbiting me in a real life demonstration of flying prowess. Me waving my arms and gibbering like an idiot.
I’d become the hub of a wild and flapping universe of chaos. This would not do. It was time to use that monkey brain of mine and disrupt things.
On the third spin I jumped directly into the path of the orbiting hawk. The hawk barely managed to avoid crashing into my stomach. It flapped away to park on a fencepost thirty feet away. I’d thoroughly pissed it off. My only thought was that it hadn’t hooked my gut with a talon. Lucky me!
It glared at me. I glared back. The rooster was safely behind me so it squawked and glared at everyone. We had achieved détente.
More in my next post…