By Jim McCann, Sunset Art Director

    Google the term ‘chicken hawk’ and you’ll find a handful of varying definitions. For instance, chicken hawk can refer to someone in the public eye who fervently supports war but actively avoided service. It can be used to describe a person who spends an inordinate amount of time trying to get stuff for free. Or, when someone who decides for whatever reason to get a Mohawk-style haircut but then at the last minute opts to leave an inch or so of hair where it should be shaved, not fully committing to the look. They’re now sporting a chicken hawk.

When I hear the term chicken hawk, I think of this guy:

We’re getting progressive in the business of raising chickens here at Sunset. For almost two years, our hens have been cooped up. Literally. Unaware of the considerable pleasures that lay just beyond their reach in our test garden. Impounded. Scratching in an area so small I couldn’t park my car in it.

But recently, Margo True, Sunset’s Food Editor and shepherd of our One-Block Diet franchise, rushed into my office and proclaimed, “Release the chickens! We must put them out to scratch to their hearts content in our garden! Free to feel the sun and able to dine on bugs and slugs. Free to release their bowels into our soil and fertilize the earth so that our crops are nourished and thrive!” (I may have paraphrased a bit)

“Plus, they’re fat and need exercise,” she added with slightly less vigor.

Sounded good to me.

So test garden guru, Johanna Silver set up this: 

http://oneblockdiet.sunset.com/2009/10/exercise-for-overweight-chickens.html

Looks great, right? Wait...where’s the roof?

When Johanna returns from vacation, I’ll have to remind her of the hawks.

Chickens are chicken.

It happened late last spring. I was out tending to the flock when off in the distance a predator bird let out a loud screech. The reaction from our chickens was nothing short of amazing. All six birds stopped what they were doing and froze. Completely. Like a gaggle of feathery statues, they cast a vacant stare up at the corrugated plastic above our heads. For like 20 seconds. Amazing because it was basic instinct in its finest form.

We got a glimpse of these magnificent birds this past summer when temperatures here in Menlo Park reached a scorching 104˚. A family of hawks (we couldn’t identify but we think they were red-tailed) visited the fountain in our center courtyard.

They had no doubt come to drink and bathe. The question was, at least in my mind, were they looking to feed?

Chicken running

And to say our chickens are skittish is nothing short of an understatement.

On Elizabeth Jardina’s (Fact-checker, chicken blogger) last day at Sunset, she wanted to spend time with them outside the coop (pre- Johanna’s contraption) and enjoy them in our garden free from wood and wire. Standing there it was hard to ignore the similarities. The birds, scratching new terrain, grabbing low-hanging fruit from tomato plants. And EJ, with a ticket to Prague in her back pocket and plans to return to school in pursuit of a master’s degree. It was a poignant moment. A moment shattered by a tiny black finch.

Yeah. A dumb little bird.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the finch dart overhead and out of sight. But that tenth of a second was enough to send poor Ophelia over the edge. She took flight, like a bat out of hell, from where she blissfully dined on cherry tomatoes, over our compost piles and into the secure confinement of the coop. Her reaction was so overtly prudent it sent the others into an unprecedented panic.

So after seeing Johanna’s chicken run, I posed the question to Team Chicken: What about the hawks?

From the hawk’s perspective, our chickens enjoying the limited freedom of our garden within an oval-shaped fence may look like this: