No that's not a football score. Today while returning home from the
neighborhood woods mushroom survey (yum, chantrelles for dinner!) there was
a disturbance in the old chicken coop. As I approached from the woods side
there was thrashing in the bird netting over the back chicken yard. To my
dismay, there was a Coopers Hawk thoroughly entangled in the net.

Now what?



I approached the unhappy bird and it struggled more but it was clearly not
getting loose without help. I went into the house got an old throw blanket
and some kitchen shears. As I entered the chicken yard the chickens all
followed behind me and as I got under the hawk, they started talking some
serious trash. The hawk thrashed and got more agitated so I figured the
operation would go smoother without them so I locked them up in the coop and
returned to cut out the hawk.



At my close approach the hawk really started squirming and got one leg loose
and took a swipe at me with those talons. Yikes, armed and dangerous. I
finally cut the hawk down but it was still covered with net so I covered it
with the throw blanket, gingerly grabbed its wings and found myself lacking
a hand to remove the rest of the netting. I oh-so-carefully tucked the now
still bird under one arm and cut away the netting as best I could. I finally
got most of it off and I set the hawk down on the ground and removed the
blanket. It was then I realized my mistake. We were still in the chicken
yard. The hawk tried to fly into the woods and bonked into the net from the
inside. Hoping that the hawk not get retangled, I opened the front "gate"
and using the blanket as a shield I eventually after several tries, flapped
the hawk out of the coop. The bird flew away apparently none the worse for
its unusual day.



Rob Sandelin

Naturalist, Writer and mostly retired teacher

Snohomish County