Page 25 - PGA Community News - November '24

November 2024
November 2024 2 Spaces PGA C.A.N.!, Page 25

Book Review

What The Chicken Knows: our lives once again
in making us aware of
A New Appreciation Of The what unrealized wonder
and beauty surrounds
World’s Most Familiar Bird us, all too often under-
appreciated.
By Nils A. Shapiro F or thos e not
All you need to know yet familiar with
is that the author is Sy Montgomery’ s
Montgomery. background, I should
For millions of readers point out that she and her
around the world, and author-historian husband,
I do mean millions, the Howard Mansfield, live
name Sy Montgomery is in New Hampshire and
associated with more than for decades have shared Park, where the humans are hiding from the hunting
35 books, many of which their home’s property from time to time with an assortment velociraptor – an animal from which, in fact, your avian
have climbed the bestseller of animals, from their border collie dog, Thurber, to a assailant is descended.
lists in 25 countries around pig that they raised from a tiny runt to 500-plus pound “You have been detected. The ominous feet hurry now,
the world – most describing her exciting adventures with Volkswagen-sized Christopher Hogwood who wandered pounding the ground in a frenzy. There is no mistaking
some of nature’s most fearsome creatures. the town on his own getting handouts from the butcher, it; this is a rooster on a rampage – the bane of many an
It is with good reason that the Boston Globe has pet scratches from the kids and became the subject of a otherwise peaceful barnyard.”
described award-winning author Sy Montgomery as “a bestselling book by Montgomery. What to do? The answer, shockingly, is to pick it up
combination of Indiana Jones and Emily Dickinson” for But always among her favorites have been the small and cuddle it!
the beautiful way in which she has written about such flock of egg-laying hens that she calls her “little ladies,” It is from Montgomery’s several decades of her own
experiences as being chased by a silverback gorilla in who have their own chicken coop but are allowed free experience raising her “ladies,” many from chicks, plus
Africa, hunted by man-eating tigers in India (National run of the backyard under the protection of several of the her roosters and all that she has studied about her ever-
Geographic produced a TV special about that), worked latest team of roosters. changing flocks, that she has filled the pages of this
in a pit with 18,000 snakes in Manitoba, swam with And one could not want a better protector than a deceptively slim 96-page book with an extraordinary
piranhas and dolphins in the Amazon, studied octopuses rooster, as two episodes described by Montgomery make number of surprising facts about the birds we all –
in their Gulf of Mexico habitat for her classic National very clear: one in which a fox that had sneaked onto the mistakenly – thought we knew.
Book Award finalist Soul of an Octopus, was undressed property with chicken dinner in mind got the shock of Within the first few pages you will readily understand
by a wild orangutan, learned the art of falconry so she its life facing an angry, charging rooster and did a rapid why more families than you might imagine throughout
could hunt as a partner with one of the world’s most feared about-face … and another time, when Sy’s husband, the nation enjoy the company of chickens (how many
predators … and too many more to touch on here. Howard, was lying on the ground repairing a lawnmower. “pets” offer the gift of eggs in return for their care?) and
So, I was more than a little surprised when I learned As she describes it: name each of the birds in their precious feathered family
that Sy’s new book, published this month, is devoted to … “Just beyond the narrow space between the grass and members for its individual personality, color or other
chickens! My first thought was, what could there possibly the machine’s metal undercarriage, movement catches physical feature. As she notes, some are shy, some more
be to learn about these birds that all of us already know your eye. Scaley reptilian, yellow feet, heavily armed with aggressive; some affectionate, others aloof. Just like
so well? long, pointed claws – and, just above the toes, curved, humans.
How wrong I was! And how fortunate we all are to have knife-sharp spurs – are purposefully striding toward
so knowledgeable a guide as Sy Montgomery to enrich you at face level. It feels like that scene from Jurassic Book Review on page 26

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