A Rooster I Call Colonel Sanders

For a while I was going to Key West, FL.  A great place to walk around, see what is happening.  A Drinking Town with a Fishing Problem I once saw on a T Shirt there. 

It has been turning into a tourist trap to catch a few dollars from the cruise ships that dock there for the afternoon.  That truly does not interest me.

I was amused that, while walking around through Old Town, there were chickens nesting in the shrubbery.  

We did not have such a thing where I had come from, either in Cherry Hill, NJ, or Philadelphia, PA.  It doesn't mean that some had not escaped, I just never saw evidence of them.

Your standard issue chickens.  Laying standard issue hen's eggs.  Doing what Chickens would do I suppose, scratching around in the dirt, crossing the road, looking for food, making way too much noise way too early.

This is why I was so surprised that we had a rooster turn up here in Wilton Manors.  We have ducks.  Way too many of the beasts.  They are supposed to be "Water Fowl" and what they do is "Sidewalk Foul".  I see the evidence of ducks everywhere I go here.

The Rooster on the other side of the coin, well, he's the lead bird.  He had just shown up and decided to keep home on one specific corner.  He does tolerate the ducks here but he chases them around the neighborhood.  

There is one drawback to having roosters in the yard.  They're noisy.  It is why you don't see a lot of roosters.  They don't allow you to sleep.  It isn't that they call at dawn, or only at dawn.  They call for a couple hours before dawn.  

Mind you, I am up about 2 hours before dawn on most mornings, so I hear him, from at least two blocks away.  At 5AM.

I walk out into the backyard with my headphones on.  Turning on the internet radio, tuning into the news program on CBC or BBC, I will hear him calling out from about a quarter mile away.

He's alone.  Maybe that is why he is constantly calling out at predawn 5AM, trying to find a hen to spend some time with.  But he is loud, and his call floats on the breezes.

There is another rooster about a half mile in the other direction from me.  That one calls frequently from the other side of the tracks.  I can hear him if it is quiet and the winds are just right.

Then again, it could just be that he relocated to where this one is.  Or maybe, he Was Relocated by someone.  I don't know.  As long as I don't have to hear him inside the house.

As I walk Rack the McNab SuperDog (TM) on his first 2 mile walk of the day.  I see the rooster and he's going to try to avoid us.  You see, I do know why the chicken crosses the road.  It is to avoid my dog.

But as we pass, he relaxes and once out of sight, you hear that call we all know.  Yes, it does sound just like that.  5:30AM wake up call, neighbors.

Good luck with that.  At least the dirty ducks are quiet, and the flocks of feral parrots don't get loud until the sun is up.