Bucket o’ chicken
My Mo, he glows like burnished copper in the sun.
There are few sights as heartwarming as chickens blissed out in a dirtbath. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work in pictures – they look deceased. Especially if their eyes are closed.
You’ll have to excuse me being so light on content this week. I’m sunlight starved. The moment there’s a patch of it, I go fling myself into it.
Which isn’t working out so great – there was a cold old North wind today.
April 20, 2023 — 6:37 pm
Comments: 4
Rooklets
This is a very rooky area. Rooks are intensely social birds and it’s not uncommon to see a big tree with eight or ten rooks nests, next to another, next to another.
We had a very lively rookery here when we first moved in. They were noisy (next door hated them) but we loved our rooks. And then they went away.
No idea why. Maybe because the tree is partly dead? Do they have an instinct not to nest in dead trees? No idea. (Behold a scholarly discussion of rook nests in stag-headed trees).
One by one the nests vanished. Stolen to make other nests in the neighborhood, I guess, or just blown away. Only this one remained.
Sorry for terrible picture. It’s a phone snap from a long way away.
I sat in the garden in the sunshine today – first of the season – and was astonished to see a rook in this nest. See that forked thing sticking up? That’s her tail. I had no idea until the male landed nearby to feed her and she shifted. She’d been sitting immobile for so long, I thought that was an old piece of wood or something.
I can’t tell you how odd it is to have a lone rook nest in a tree.
Rooks lay end of March, beginning of April. Incubation period is 18 days. Today is April 19. Ladies and germs, I reckon we have rooklets.
April 19, 2023 — 5:42 pm
Comments: 6
Sexy, sexy swans
This afternoon.There were three, actually, and they were flapping and chasing each other. I don’t know if that’s normal swan interaction or mate selection or what. Wikipedia says:
Swans famously mate for life, and typically bond even before they reach sexual maturity. Trumpeter swans, for example, who can live as long as 24 years and only start breeding at the age of 4–7, form monogamous pair bonds as early as 20 months. “Divorce”, though rare, does occur; one study of mute swans showing a 3% rate for pairs that breed successfully and 9% for pairs that do not.
So, swan divorce? Who knows.
It’s not unheard of to see a gathering of swans in a field. I once saw so many, I lost count at around thirty. Hit the link for a discussion of swan-upping. A sheep farmer told me the swans gather when it’s going to be unusually cold inland (coming to the coast for warmth), but wrong time of year.
Me, I hope we have more babies!
April 13, 2023 — 4:14 pm
Comments: 2
She’s done it again…I hope
Spoon wasn’t there at rollcall tonight. She’s done this before. Next morning, I find her pecking around the garden like nothing. Let us hope.
But it’s going to be a wild night. Wind and rain, a specialty of the house. I’ve been round and round the house, looking high and low – I’m good at spotting her silhouette – but I’ve got nothing to show but wet.
I hope she has a nice dry safe perch somewhere.
My favorite hen. I mean, look at that face and tell me it doesn’t cheer you right up. Yes, she has a face.
April 11, 2023 — 6:56 pm
Comments: 7
First!
Over the weekend. March 11 – about right.
I know, I know – it’s a lousy picture. You have to cut me some slack: I started my day carrying two filing cabinets up a flight of stairs and it just got more delightful from there.
Okay, a man took the weight and I mostly steered, but I got to bring all eight drawers up by myself.
People have no idea what a handicap it is being lazy.
March 13, 2023 — 7:06 pm
Comments: 6
It’s snowing in Yorkshire
Robert Fuller is a wildlife artist. Periodically, some thoughtful person sends me a link to his YouTube channel because he raised and rewilded two adorable baby stoats in 2021.
I’m linking because he also is running a couple of live streams, one from Fotherdale:
Welcome to ‘Live from Fotherdale’, a selection of bird cams streamed from inside barn owl and kestrel nests, a buzzard feeding post and a stoat habitat. This livestream also picks up passing foxes, hares, weasels and even badgers – offering the very best of British wildlife for you to enjoy.
And one from Ash Wood:
Welcome to ‘Live from Ash Wood’ where bird cams are streamed from a woodland habitat teeming with British wildlife. See inside tawny owl and kestrel nests, spot deer and badgers drinking at the pond and look out for the occasional sparrowhawk or buzzard flying through. There is a friendly live chat, offering a supportive and informative community of wildlife lovers for you to interact with as you watch the bird cams.
I was watching a little while ago and it was snowing like unto a bastard. This storm has missed us this year – well, it arrived as drizzle – meaning we won’t see any of the white stuff. I miss it. England is purty in the snow.
His streams don’t run 24/7, so I don’t know if those URLs will always work. If not, go to the Home tab on his channel and his livestreams, if any, will be there.
March 9, 2023 — 3:46 pm
Comments: 4
Farewell to Mister Glenn Popo
Ladies and gentlemen, the world has lost a legendary ‘fro. I heard today that Po, the cockerel I managed to pawn off on a friend, has gone to the great henhouse in the sky. Died in his sleep.
He’s the one, you may recall, who inherited an entire harem when he moved, including a lady turkey. Though, I must say, the turkey didn’t care for him so I don’t think he got very far with her.
He was one of six internet eggs I hatched nearly four years ago. I called him Po – or Popo – because that’s what was written on his egg shell, presumably short for Poland. The little girls at his new home called him Mister Glenn Popo. Little girls, eh?
No, he couldn’t see very well and, when startled – and he was startled a lot – he would zoom around the garden and bump into things with much loud clonking.
I don’t like posting when I lose animals, but I have bugger-all else to say for myself. I sat around in the comfy chair all day.
March 1, 2023 — 7:18 pm
Comments: 8
What is going through his tiny pea brain?
Sam, my #2 cockerel. I’ve told the story before. He used to be my #1 cockerel. One day, my #2 cockerel had enough of Sam and beat the snot out of him, henceforth #1. I didn’t realize it until chicken bedtime and I had to coax a muddy, bloody Sam out of the hedge.
When I get home from work and let the pekins out, Mo swaggers up to the girls and Sam runs round the back of the house as fast as his feathery feet will take him. There, he perches on the back of a chair and stares at me.
He’s looking right over my left shoulder as I sit in my comfy chair and shitpost on my laptop. He’s there for hours.
I would love to think he’s having weird, small, chickeny thoughts about the room, but it’s probably more about the oats we throw out the back door from time to time. Roosters are all about freedom, food and sex (in season). Not so much interspecies curiosity.
Good weekend, all!
January 27, 2023 — 7:05 pm
Comments: 6
It’s a chickenspiracy!
Okay, here’s one of the stranger conspiracy theories on offer. The woman in the video at the beginning of this thread says she’s been keeping chickens for thirty years and her chickens have never completely stopped laying in Winter. But this year, she didn’t get a single egg after October.
Until she switched from commercial chicken food to a mixture of corn, sunflower seeds and commercial goat food. Now they’re laying again.
But that’s backed up by tweet after tweet down-thread and some reposted Facebook threads saying the same thing. Lots of backyard chicken keepers say their hens stopped laying in September/October this year while eating commercial layers pellets. Not enough protein, some speculate.
A few years ago, one of our neighbors gave up keeping a few pigs for market. The government had mandated that commercial pigs be raised on commercial pig food. No more kitchen scraps. That was a red flag for me at the time, because it meant the government effectively controlled the price of pork.
It didn’t occur to me it also gave them an avenue to put something in the feed and hence the food supply. You know, tell the manufacturers that thus an such a chemical was a required de-wormer. Like something to make pork taste less awesome, or statins or a vaccine or an anti-fertility drug.
Okay, okay…I’m getting carried away. But who puts anything past the bastards now?
My chickens? My fancy little hens never lay from October to March, though they did stop earlier then usual this year. I’d be surprised if the conspiracy hopped the pond and contaminated a good old British brand like Marriages.
January 23, 2023 — 8:14 pm
Comments: 9
I think I have rooster problems
Behold, the Dorking Cockerel. Yes, there really is a place in Surrey called Dorking and it is known for a fine breed of domestic chicken, called the Dorking. They were brought to Britain by the Romans and – unusually for a chicken – often have five toes.
This big metal bird was erected in the middle of a traffic circle in 2007. Locally popular, he is occasionally subject to fond guerilla knitting campaigns.
I have not seen this fine bit of civic sculpture. A visitor from Surrey told me about it and I thought I would share.
January 19, 2023 — 8:30 pm
Comments: 5