All Creatures Great and Small

Today I rescued a chicken. We don't live in the country, but our neighborhood has a stray chicken that wanders around pecking at bugs. I do not know how it got here, but we see it most mornings while waiting for the school bus. There's also a guinea hen that flocks with it occasionally. They roam unencumbered through people's yards eating bugs. Amusing to watch.
In the next neighborhood over there are a few peacocks nesting in the trees. We hear their mating calls sometimes. A small flock of geese decorates the picturesque landscape near us. We pass them very morning on our way to work, school, ...anywhere. We've seen raccoons watching us from trees. And a few times, I have been awoken by the soft "whoo, whoo" of an owl or the drilling of a woodpecker in a tree. I've really enjoyed living in the midst of such wildlife. Much nicer than the traffic and trains I listened to daily prior to moving here!

Well. today I was outside helping Mat fix the car when we heard a really horrendous distress cry. It sounded like a cross between a wounded mountain lion and a large bird. Very strange sound. We didn't know what it was. I headed to the backyard thinking some poor animal was tangled in our electric fence. Hmm, nothing there. Thank goodness. Still heard the cries though. Then I realized there was a lot of barking going on in our neighbor's yard. My neighbor's wire fox terrier "Chopper" can be a niusance at times. He had apparently been "hunting" the chicken and had it cornered. I shooed the dog away and the chicken ran free.

A small thing.

But, for a minute, I felt like a wildlife hero!