Eventful Weekend

Well, I promised pics last week, and I failed.  I failed you all when I said the end of the week had not yet arrived, but I would post pics by then.  I did no such thing, as I am now a failure.  But I did get some pics this weekend which will follow in the next post.  Mike and I had a scary Saturday night.  A little after 3:30 a.m. Mike woke me to tell me something was getting the chickens!  Occasionally a rooster will crow in the middle of the night, but most often the hens are sleeping or at least trying to do so, with little or no noise of their own.  But Saturday night the whole lot of them were making quite a raucous that woke Mike.  There was a huge (wing span of about 4 feet) owl claws first in the pigeon coop!  It flew off, and we wait 10 minutes or so before returning to bed.  Once again, the chickens started squawking and we raced out again to see the owl fly off!  This happened several times before the owl finally succeeded in killing one of the pigeons and maming one other one.  I was so angry!  We were sad at the loss of our only barred racer.  One of the dark racers was injured.  They next morning they flew out and about and returned Sunday evening, but refused to go back into the coop.  They still fly around, but will not go in after that incident.  I don't blame them.  The worst part is they are a protected species, maiking it illegal to hurt or kill one of these (beautiful) birds of prey.   All I can say is that my birds are well protected from that owl.