If you look very carefully at this photograph, you will see a little grey head to the left of the red water dish. This is Violet. She is a Blue Andalusian - if I remember correctly. I haven't seen more of her than her little head in over three weeks. One morning, three weeks ago, as I was bending over to unlatch the door to the coop and let loose the hoard, I noticed a LARGE pile of grey feathers on the ground near the shed. Dang! I figured the hawk had claimed a pigeon. Then I recognized the feathers. A quick check of the little coop (nursery to all small poultry) came up with one short of the head-count. I didn't see any blood or gore, so I figured she had been carried off. As I leaned over to pick up the feathers, I noticed a grey-feathered form squeezed under the shed - she was alive and terrified. I suspected Bernie - the closet hunter. Violet must have gotten out of the nursery and I unwittingly let the dogs out. Bernie gets a mouthful of feathers, and Violet moves under the shed. Since the ground is frozen, I cannot dig her out and she has shown no signs of venturing out on her own. It's fine for now, but the trouble is, there's a 'backdoor' on the wild side of the shed - and no end of chicken-eating varmints who know it's there. I'm trying to convince myself that it is worth it to cut a hole in the shed floor and roust her out. So far, it's on the bottom of my six-page to-do list. Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment