Robin went out after the storm to check on the chicken house. Unfortunately she found one of our old friends beheaded. While trying to figure out what kind of animal must have done such a thing, she noticed a really strange chicken. It was really tall and laying on it's back in the mud. Then she realized it was a hawk. Inside the chicken house. Jerry told her to bring it inside, where he gave it a quiet corner to sit in while it dried itself off. It seems between the wild storm and attempting to escape the poor bird was reduced to a state where it could not fly. Later that day Jerry decided to let it go, and it promptly got itself stuck in the fence. While Robin and Jerry went to free it, our local flock of wild turkeys decided to come help. With much turkey blabbering they seemed to be showing some kind of concern for the fate of the grounded bird. I never would have believed that ground birds could possibly find common cause with a predator like this. But clearly they did. So our visitor was freed, and he walked away with the flock of turkeys. They seemed concerned to keep him safe. After a bit of online research Jerry determined that our visitor was not a hawk, but instead a juvenile American Bald Eagle. We have quite a number in the neighborhood, but one this close (Robin carried the thing) was something none of us ever thought we'd experience. What an odd and wonderful day. There was evidently some dispute early in the history of our nation as to whether the national bird should be a Bald Eagle, with Ben Franklin lobbying in favor of the wild turkey. Today we saw that perhaps they have more in common than we ever really knew.
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