Brownie, our Ameraucana, sounded a full five-alarm emergency this morning as we were cooking up breakfast. I ran outside in time to see a huge red-shouldered hawk taking off from the top of our admittedly overgrown apple tree. This is our second hawk alarm. The first happened in the front yard last year–Cindy, one of our three Australorps, was grazing under our red-leafed maple and was dive-bombed by a red-tailed hawk. There are a great many raptors in the Arcata area, likely due to the large proportion of open land (meadows, marshes) around town. There’s several small neighborhood parks with flowing creeks within a half mile of our home and lots of gophers, mice, rats, voles–and chickens. Now that raising backyard chickens is so popular, we’ve probably created a smorgasbord for raptors to choose from.