Flying Chickens



Chickens are often described as flightless, certainly true as they get older and heavier. Well one day I saw my full grown rooster fly. It was a lovely, bright, sunny mid summer day and my mother and I were outside doing some gardening and enjoying the day when my mom said "The chickens are by the road". Somehow they had sneaked through the bushes and were scratching the gravel on the shoulder of the road. We live on a secondary highway with a speed limit of 80 km/hr. It is especially busy in the summer as cottage goers descend and construction gets busy.

I swung into action calling the birds and shaking some food and while most of the flock came back into the safety of my yard, the rooster stayed to protect the remaining bird. We went around and tried to shoo him back into the yard but it seemed like the closer we got to him, the farther he went. I almost got around the other side of him but a car came and scared him across the road and down the steep bank over hanging the ocean. It was clear to me he was going to stay hidden there for quite sometime. I went back to the yard. We started calling him again but I was torn because if his return was ill timed he would get hit by a car. I decided to leave it for a bit, hoping he would come home.

 As I wandered farther up into the yard my mom shouted "Look, there he is". He was across the road but starting to cross to come home.Just then, I heard air brakes and downshifting of something large and saw a transfer truck come around the bend. The chicken was smack dab in the middle of the road running down the center line when he saw the truck behind him. The truck was barrelling, trying to stop and that chicken ran and then it happened. The rooster took flight a few feet off of the ground, eyes bulging and flew, as fast as I have ever seen any animal move,  down the middle of the road, just a few feet from the front grill of an eighteen wheel truck for thirty feet before banking into our driveway and landing. My mom and I stared in disbelief. I felt like i had just fallen into a Looney Tunes cartoon. That is the day I saw the rooster fly. He never lead his flock astray again, and I have never seen a chicken fly with sustained flight, speed and the will to live.


feathered friends gather to ask for scraps at the back door

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