If at first you don't succeed...

Try, try again.  "Dad, can we go hunting again tomorrow?  I want to kill a duck and eat him."  So we're up again this morning at 5 am driving back to the duck blind.  We witnessed another gorgeous sunrise as we waited on the first flight of ducks.

First rays of sunlight in the eastern sky

And then all of a sudden, as if on cue, a lone duck lit right in the middle of our spread of decoys.  Fatal mistake, Mr. Duck.  One shot took him and Benjamin was excited.  Now this duck isn't exactly a much sought after duck like a mallard, pintail, teal or wood duck.  This is the lowly spoonbill, but doggonit, we're going to eat him.  Here is a picture of Benjamin with the spoonbill.


One better than yesterday

Spoonbills get their name from the spoon shaped bill that gets wide toward the tip of the bill.  They use this distinctive bill to help them forage around in the shallow water looking for grass seeds, algae, and aquatic insects.  We breasted him out and will attempt to eat him.  His remains were buried in the garden

One of the items on my list for the day was to clean the strip of land that borders our property on the south side of our fence.  Honeysuckle vines were growing on the hogwire and many weeds and small trees were growing close to the fence.  I like to keep a barren strip of land bordering the woods and the pasture to act as some sort of barrier, perhaps, to critters that may want to dine on our chickens.  The weeds/trees seen below gives them cover.



Before

I used some hand clippers to remove the encroaching jungle and then followed up with the mower.  Look below, doesn't that look better?  Now I can see any approaching predators before they get their prey.

After

Speaking of predators, while I was working on clearing the lane south of the fence, I heard a loud ruckus coming from the chickens in the pasture and looked up just in time to see a large red-tailed hawk swoop down, with talons outstretched and grab one of our Aracauna hens.  The chickens went berserk and miraculously the hen got away from the hawk's grasp.  I watched this whole thing in amazement.  All the chickens in the pasture ran for the safety of the barn, so I went to check on them.

Here is the poor hen, minus some feathers, but other than that, okay and probably feeling pretty fortunate to have a second chance at life.  If you notice below by the pink spots on her back, that is where the hawk sunk his talons into her.  She's fine, though.


Whew!

Let's go check at the scene of the crime.  Below you can see the whitish feathers on the ground that should be on Sally Hennypenny's back.  CSI Jennings (Barnyard Edition)


The crime scene

A hawk is a federally protected bird.  Logically, it would seem that barnyard justice would say that the hawk meet the same fate as the spoonbill, but that would be illegal and land me promptly in jail with a hefty fine.  No thanks. 

Our hunt yesterday yielded us no meat for the freezer.  Benjamin's persistence as a hunter enabled him to want to try again today and this time, we were successful.  Let's hope that the hawk that he won't have the same persistence as we did in his hunting of our chickens.  Hopefully, he's a quitter.