[birding] Chicken evades cougar

[Joel Geier]

Hi folks,

Don't know how she did it, but one of our hens just came back from the
dead. 

A bit earlier today I found a pullet that this hen had hatched out, on
its own for the first time ever. Then we saw feathers and some tracks of
a COUGAR that must have come over an electric fence into our neighbors'
horse exercise area, where the hen and pullet had been hanging out. 

Around the same time, our sheep came barreling from the back yard around
to the front, just after Becky had seen them heading to the back yard
and I went out to chase them away from our garden.

Now the hen just reappeared on her own and seems OK, though missing a
few feathers off the back. I'm guessing that the cougar nearly nabbed
the hen but missed when I came out of the house to chase the sheep
(though I didn't see it), or else maybe it got zapped by the fence and
that spooked it. One track where the cougar landed in the sand had the
claws extended (right by the feathers) and is sort of smeared sideways
as if the cougar was sliding, while the rest had the claws pulled in.

So, score one for the ever-wily Buff Orpington hen. Her name is Buffy,
so if any of you were fans of that series, you might enjoy the
back-from-the-dead idea. We really did think that she was a goner --
what chance does a chicken stand against a cougar?

Just to mention an actual wild bird in all of this, a GOLDEN-CROWNED
SPARROW was giving alarm notes the whole time we were out there.

Happy birding,
Joel

--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis