Birds Eye View

And now for something completely different, a little chicken anatomy and physiology

 

Chickens have a third eye lid a  nictitating membrane it moves sideways across the eye, from the inner  corner of the eye to the outer; here is one of the white leghorns taking a drink from the pond,

I’ve unintentionally pressed the shutter when the  membrane was across her eye, she normally looks a bit brighter eyed than this; we humans have a vestige of the membrane still remaining in the inner corner of our eyes, isn’t evolution clever.

 some birds fly with the membrane closed, it’s thought that it helps protect the eye from dust and grit, its transparent so they don’t crash, sort of Biggles goggles for birds

The lower eye lid of the chicken is more mobile than the upper, they ‘blink’ with the membrane, closing the eyelids ‘proper’ for sleeping, this is Thing One basking in the sun.

  

Birds have developed a flock of adaptations to suit their needs Woodpeckers tighten their nictitating membrane a millisecond prior to their beak impacting the trunk of a tree in order to prevent their eyes from leaving their sockets

I think that is so cool,Tom thinks it is ‘mint,’ as I imagine, does the woodpecker.

All Roads Lead to the Lake District

We’ve been in the Lake District this weekend; Joe’s school had an activity weekend in Brrowdale, Mr Uhdd had a fell race to run and Tom’s school had a choir event in the South Lakes. I played out with the camera.

The Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, Mr Uhdd woke early and felt the need to share this information with me, in fact he was more direct he said ‘You need to get out with the camera, NOW!’ So at 06:00hrs on Sunday morning I was at the Summit of the Honister pass, it was a special place to be.

Despite the ridiculous time, it was so still and tranquil

Well it was tranquil until, I came across a quartet of cockerels at the Honister Slate mine, they were cock a doodle doing as such birds do at sunrise, (take a look at the mines web site for some excellent aerial photos of the area.)

the sound reverberated for miles down the pass, (Kingmagic, you would have been impressed.)

I’ve another busy week ahead, before the children break for half term holidays, so I might just drip feed you Lakeland scenes, watch this space.

Missing

In a change from the scheduled post I bring sad news that ‘Thing Two’ has died.

 

Now the serious chicken keepers may pour scorn on such sentimentality; but I have to admit I was rather fond of the old bird. She has been living out a comfortable retirement from egg production, getting a bit slower and detached from the rest of the flock as the weeks passed, but never the less she seemed to be happy. I had been making sure she got her fair share of food, chickens can be ruthless about ‘pecking orders’ and getting the biggest share of the nosh.

I miss her about the place, she had taken to spending her day near the house, in the herb bed, basking in the sun by the rosemary bush if the weather was fair or seeking shelter under a conifer if it rained. I think Moss the dog misses her, Thing Two’s  favourite position was just out of the reach of Moss, but not out of her sight, it drove Moss mad that she couldn’t get past the gate to round her up, Thing Two was indifferent to Moss’s frantic barking, however I don’t think the neighbours will miss Moss barking so much.

Thing Two failed to turn up at the hen house at dusk on Wednesday night, I searched around for her but couldn’t find her I thought she must have ben picked off by a fox, but eventually I found her on Thursday, down by the compost heap, it seems to have been a case of death by ‘natural causes’ rather than the fox, I am relieved about that, and very relived that she hadn’t got to the stage where she became ill rather than old and we had to humanely kill her.

Mad House

I have spent some time today searching for my glasses, I could remember I brought them in from the car on Saturday, when I got back from shopping, but I couldn’t find them, not until I  was preparing some lunch and there they were; in the fridge, in the bag with a pound and a half of traditional sausages and a pound of home cured bacon. They have misted up now.

‘Thing one’ made a break for freedom this morning, and who could blame her, it’s a mad house;

she fluttered up into the cab of the delivery drivers van, he looked a little bemused, she looked some what thwarted when I retrieved her. I told Joe what she had done , ‘Oh no she didn’t do a poo, did she?’ no thank goodness,that would have cost us a dozen eggs , by way of an apology.

She isn’t the first of our pets to plan a great escape, Boo the old cat, had to be brought back home by the telephone engineer who had been working at the house, he  found her in the back of his van when he got back to the telephone exchange, at the other side of town.

Messy Eater

I found a pot of creme fraiche, well past its use by date (even by my standards and they are fairly relaxed on such matters) in the back of the fridge I took it out for the hens (little food is wasted around here.)

Bella was ahead of the flock, and so got stuck in before the others arrived and she would have to share,

She got in a right old mess, as did everything else within range, when she sneezed, having got the stuff up her ‘nose’.

Killing Field

OK that’s the holiday over, we’ve done fluffy snow and blue skies, now we need to have a chat about this chap.

Handsome isn’t he? we don’t see him very often, twice in fact in about 17 years, once trotting across the top field on a sunny afternoon and one morning, just before the school run, catching voles in the field, leaping around like a playful kitten in the September mist. We have spent more time fox watching at our friends house in London than we have here, they have a fox come up to patio windows every evening. We know the local foxes patrol our fields each night especially at this time of year when food is scarce, we don’t see them, just  the evidence of the visit. Last week I mentioned there were a lot of feathers in the field, they look very pretty in the frost, but there have been an unprecedented number of less photogenic finds, I am going publish some of them; so click away now if you are feeling delicate;

ready? here we go;

Last week we found a pair of lambs hind legs attached to a large piece of wooly skin, now I’ve brought you decomposing moles, sick rabbits and decorative uses of a sheep’s skull before but I did baulk at photographing this one (it was a bit like finding the remains of Mr Tumnus in the grass)

It’s not that I have some morbid fascination with decay (honest) it’s just nature taking its course, a hungry fox needs to eat, my reason for wandering around the field, collecting the remains is a time and money saving exercise; as Moss the dog (who has a few vices, we know, it’s more to do with operator error than the dogs fault) will if she finds them first, and they are putrid enough, roll on them, or worse still sink her teeth into them, now if she was better trained, she would on command let go, but she becomes some what possessive about them, it’s either a battle to get her to give them up or it could be a very expensive vets bill to remove chicken bones from her guts.

This was last Wednesdays haul, now unless it was a three winged cockerel, we have here the remains of more than one bird

Take a closer look at the cockerels spur, would you argue with that? one hungry fox.

They are not our livestock, I think they are from a farm up the road, but our field is a direct route from there, to a sand quarry where I think the fox set is, but it’s is making us much more careful about ensuring our own hens are safely shut away each evening at dusk.

We could have a caption competition for this shot, but I can assure you that our chicken ‘thing one’, her interest was purely from a ‘can I eat it?’ perspective, not unlike the dog in this post by ‘Inspector Gadget’.

Look me in the eye

This is ‘thing one’ she is team leader, supervisor, forewoman, maverick and one bossy chick, I know she’s ‘thing one’ because her beak is clipped, it was done before we bought her, at ‘point of lay’  she was destined to be a battery hen, so her beak was clipped to stop her pecking at the other birds, something all hens do if stressed or bored.

 

Yesterday I thought I would sneak up to the pond and get you a great shot of a heron that is calling in daily, in search of a few wriggly frogs for lunch, I had no hope, I was followed by six hens all clucking and squawking. They are not camera shy, so inquisitive is ‘thing one’ that she jumped on my knee, had a good look at her reflection in the lens, before pecking at it (thank goodness for lens filters)

Below is thing two, as you can see she is not so bright eyed and her comb is much smaller, she doesn’t seem to be ill, she’s eating well and clucking about, but she is always lagging behind the rest of the flock, she’s just getting old I think, occasionally she forgets to go to go back to the hen house at night (we did wonder if dementia is setting in!) and I’ll find her sat on Toms bike saddle in the barn.  We will just have to keep an eye on her, so long as she is not suffering she can enjoy her retirement

She likes basking in the sun, underneath the bird feeder, waiting for any thing that falls,we don’t keep chicken for commercial reasons, so we are a bit soft on the old girl.

Rush Hour

 

08:00 In time for the school run, some snow, but it soon melted, I am sure the boys are disappointed.

The hens were reluctant to come out

And the white leghorns decided the top of the ark was as far as they were going.

 

This morning I felt it was prudent to wear  more than a dressing gown to go out with the camera, it’s a cold wind.

A bird of very little brain

It doesn’t seem the most sensible place to lay an egg, on a windy, exposed window ledge,

seven feet above the flagstones.

Especially when there is a snug nest box with nice clean bedding available, but the two Warrens, ‘thing one’ and ‘thing two’, have always been mavericks.

After all the programs about chicken production over the last week or so, there has been much debate about domestic poultry keeping, Hedge Wizard tells you how to go about it here, the pros and the cons, where as

Stonehead is more cautious.

You certainly need to give the idea, careful consideration, in the same way as you would before taking on a pet dog.

We have chickens and a dog, the chickens, even the maverick ones, are a breeze compared to the dog, but that may say more about the dog than chickens.

Job Satisfaction

None of these tasks were on my to-do list for the day, but what the hell, they were all high in job satisfaction.

• Today I have got my flickr photos back in my sidebar! hooray.
• I have discovered where the white leghorn chickens are laying their egg, and retrieved 12 eggs.
• I have oiled a squeaky door, why did I not do that weeks ago?
• I re-strung some Christmas tree lights from circa 1948

Mum was talking the other day how as a child they never had any Christmas decorations in the house and that when in 1948 she and dad got their first home, they bought a Christmas tree and some light; the lights were used all through my childhood, we still have them, so I got them out of the loft, it took me back a bit seeing dad writing on them, with the details of the bulb size and wattage, just the sound of the lamps rattling together takes me back to my childhood; the wiring was more than a little dodgy.

The men of our house were a bit disparaging of them, maybe it was the nursery rhyme theme,I explained it was a ‘retro’ look and tough, I was going to do it anyway.

It came as no surprise to find when I took the bulbs out, that there was bits of silver foil in and amongst the connections, it was just the sort of thing my dad was always doing; so with a bit of modification I have got them threaded on to new light; originally they were just white lights, but I have used coloured one, I am rather pleased, and I know mum will be delighted to see them lit again

Part of the inspiration too get these light working again came from our weekend in the Borrowdale area, where I found a wonderful little cafe, called ‘Temporary Measure’ in Main Street in Keswick; it was filled with all sorts of ‘retro’ goodies as well as nice tea and cakes, and the young and talented proprietors create clever, witty canvas prints, take a look you would be to late to order for Christmas now though.

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