Although other animals appear occasionally in d’Hondecoeter’s compositions, he focused mainly on representations of various birds generally shown in intimate settings with landscape views in the distance. Typically, they appear close up in the center of the canvas, occasionally in combat, at rest, or startled by a predator. In this work, a rooster, watching over a hen and her brood of chickens turns in alarm at the arrival of a duck that has just landed behind him. D'Hondecoeter was of Flemish origin and spent most of his life in Amsterdam, where he gained prominence for his avian themes. His work continued to be admired into the nineteenth century and he was referred to as the “Raphael of bird painters.”