Someone sent me a link to this hilarious blog post today.  To sum up: Audrey's chickens spent the entire day being terrorized by a dried sunflower seed head.  Which her gardening friend had kindly saved and dried for her, and which she had set out in their run thinking that they would have fun picking at it all day.  Oh my no!  They flew into a complete panic upon seeing it, then spent the rest of the day in their coop without food (just water).

Dried sunflower heads = SHEER TERROR.

This isn't terribly unusual.  After all, we call cowards "chicken" for a reason.  

Of course, there is a plethora of stories to the contrary.  I am particularly reminded of the story of the silkie brood hen who refused to leave her chicks behind when they were attacked by a hawk.  She got halfway across the yard, stopped, then ran back and sheltered them from the hawk attack with her own body.  I believe this was originally published in Reader's Digest, but I saw it most recently in the documentary "The Natural History of the Chicken."  (Which is entertaining, fascinating, and funny, and I totally recommend it.)

Roosters have a natural tendency to be bold in the face of danger.  After all, that's their ecological purpose - to protect the hens and chicks.  And hens have the mothering instinct to protect their chicks, just like any other maternal animal.

However, with all that being said, chickens are notable for being scared of things.  This again is an evolutionary trait, since chickens are pretty far down at the bottom of the food chain.  They seem to innately fear aerial threats more than any other, and the "Oh no!  What's that?" trill can be observed even in baby chicks only a few days old.  This trill is a cautionary noise which causes any other chicken within earshot to freeze and look about for the danger. 

The next step is the alarm call.  Which sounds to human observers exactly like the "I just laid an egg" call.  Except that when it's used as an alarm, the entire flock freaks out.  Whereas no one even looks up at the "I just laid an egg" call.  So there must be a difference that's audible to them, if not us!

I have only heard this call (bok-bok-bok-BRAGAWK!) once, when a great blue heron landed beside the chicken tractor and started peering inside.   A great blue heron is no threat to an adult chicken, although it would probably take a chick.  However, if you are a chicken with an innate fear of hawks, having a bird five times your height land beside your pen is obviously an alarming prospect.

The "Hawk!" alert seems to be the strongest threat level, because it sends everyone running.  I have heard this call a few times, because my property lies on the migration route of at least a dozen species of raptor.  And they all like to swoop through the yard to give the chicken tractor a closer look!  (Don't worry, it's fully enclosed, the chickens are safe.)  

Funnily enough, this call sounds exactly like the word "Hawwwwk!"  The first time I heard it, I actually thought it was a goose honking in the yard.  Then I saw the bald eagle finish swooping past, and realized that it was the chickens.