The Next Generation

Wednesday 8th February 2012
A dull start to the day.
It was supposed to go down to 9 below last night, but judging by the thickness
of the ice in the animals' water, I reckon it only reached about minus 6!
By sunrise though, it was closer to zero.

The Next Generation

Yesterday these little beauties arrived in the post from Cornwall, safely wrapped up and entombed in their polystyrene carry case. The greenish blue ones are from Araucana hens, the other 4 are Cornish Indian Game. I'm hoping they all hatch and six females would be nice!

Now all I need to do is put them pointed end down for 24 hours at room temperature, then sneak them underneath Elvis to do the rest of the hard work. Elvis has been sitting on two eggs for a few days now, purely to encourage her to stay broody. We marked them with a cross, as she tends to gather in any other eggs that are laid too.

The first time we put eggs under Elvis we made a fatal beginners mistake. We had acquired six guineafowl eggs from Orkney, but I thought it would be a good idea to let Elvis sit on one of her own eggs too. Sure enough, about three weeks later, there was a cute, fluffy yellow chick.

But it was another five days before anything else happened. I was amazed that Elvis stayed sat on the nest all that time. However, when three guineafowl chicks did eventually emerge from their shells, Elvis was not interested in looking after them. In fact, she viciously attacked the tiny little things so badly that one died and one was injured and later had to be put out of its misery. Elvis was only being a good mother. Obviously the gap between hatchings was too long and she saw these new chicks as threatening intruders.




We ended up having to hand rear the sole survivor.

 We're further down the line now. That first yellow chick is now 'Chick of Elvis', laying eggs of her own. The one surviving guineafowl is now a fine, raucous bird who should soon start taking an interest in the growing female which came from our second attempt at hatching eggs.

 

The Sparrowhawk Needs To Eat Too.
The garden has been jumping with birds over the last couple of days. As the thaw started to set in, the feeders saw chaffinches, greenfinches, goldfinches and blackbirds galore. The Sparrowhawk(s) discovered the feeders too. I had several sparrowhawk sightings today, which is good considering I spent most of the day indoors with a heavy cold, preparing the paperwork for my forthcoming pig movement. I've registered for this online, as, come April, all movement notifications will be done this way. I'm sure there's a few old time farmers out there won't be too impressed by that, but it is a lot easier than the quadruplicate form we used to have to fill in. 
Back to the important subject of garden birds. As I said, several times I saw a sparrowhawk around the farm today, but the most exciting was as I took a coffee break and watched the feeders from the kitchen window. All of a sudden, as if it appeared from thin air, there amongst the throng of feeding birds were the spread wings of a large, female sparrowhawk. It missed on its first strike, lashed out a few times, then pursued a blackbird across the paddock and into the hedge. Now you may be hoping the blackbird escaped, but the sparrowhawk needs to eat too!

8 Skylarks appeared in Molby's field, which runs alongside my land. Now in a small winter flock, last time I noticed skylarks they were high up in a blue sky belting out their spring song.
There are two song thrushes spending a lot of time in the ivy which clambers up one of the ash trees. I'm hoping they're a pair looking to settle down and nest. I have been hearing their early morning repetitive singing of late.