Looking Back and Moving On, Part 1

I used to joke about having SO many eggs, we should eat a couple of the hens. As it turned out, something beat me to it. When spring came, and the days started getting longer, we didn't always get the chickens cooped before dark. So, about 9:00 PM one fine night, I heard the chickens making noise--which was odd, since they're usually bedded down by then. I ran out to the coop--perhaps I had a premonition?--and found that two chickens had been badly injured, and two more had lost large patches of feathers. The fifth and sixth were hiding behind a rooster in the coop. It's the only service that the roosters have ever done for us ;-) I got them all into the coop. I was scared, and angry, and sad. I didn't expect the injured chickens to live. I was right. One died that night, and the other the next. I should probably have put them out of their misery earlier. How the hell should I know? Now, there's no holes UNDER the fence, and there's no holes IN the fence. But there's no FENCE over the hole on the top. I'm pretty sure something came in from overhead, and left the same way. Problem is, I have NO idea what it was. It may have been a raccoon, or it may have been a raptor bird. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't fox or skunk. It has to climb or fly.