Tuesday 30 November 2010

Swift Half update - 30th November 2010

  • The bitter weather continues, with a bone-chilling nor-easterly and a dusting of the white hell today.
  • Cutlery update - I got home from work and this afternoon is the first time I've seen her standing in over two days! She looks very sad, is very smelly, but her feet aren't scrunched up anymore. Maybe Mr.T perked her up at lunch (Mr.T is my neighbour remember, who came 'round kindly during his lunch break to top up the hens frozen waterpots) or maybe the antibiotics are finally kicking in. Well.... I'm not holding ma breath - but it is nice to see Cutters standing up of her own accord!
  • Conker, Couven and Trouble update - I kept the other three separated again all day and let them out at half three. Couven has most certainly backed down for good now and there were only a couple of half-hearted pecks to the back of her neck from Trouble just to remind her. Couvs is "well wary" of Trouble!
  • I'm so happy with the hens reactions to each other today, I'll NOT separate them tomorrow and see what happens. I'll pop food and water at each end of the 12' run - so Couven gets enough sustenance - but apart from that - all I'll do is open up the coop foor at 6:30am and let them to get on with things. Fingers crossed!
  • Once again on retiring tonight, Couven went to bed first, then went the darling Conker (who once again ousted poor Couvs from her bed (Couvs went to sleep in the other bed instead)) and once again I had to walk Trouble up the ramp to the coop - she still hasn't worked out where her bed is yet. I hope by letting them come out of the coop tomorrow morning of their own accord, they'll (including Trouble) find their way back in come dusk, nay bother.

Monday 29 November 2010

Swift Half update - 29th November 2010

  • Cutlery update - two days into her antibiotics - no change. She's not improving. Poor thing is still inside. We will make a decision on what to do with her very soon. The trouble is, she's still eating and drinking a little...
  • Hen update - we have got hold of two new hens to keep the Couvster company - a little darling we've named "Conker" because she is conker coloured (she's a Columbian Blacktail) and a VERY impressive black hen (a Black Star or Rhode Rock or Miss Pepperpot (all the same breed)) we've called "Trouble".
  • Conker - the sweetest-looking hen I've ever seen I think - petite (at least compared to Trouble and Couven, though that may not always be the case), a perfect wee comb and a whole beak! We got Couven and Cutlery with broken beaks - the result of being cooped up in a concrete stable for the first 4 months of their lives. We know better now! Conker is a chestnut coloured Columbian Blacktail - she has the most beautiful silky plumage and a few black tail feathers hence her name. Her manners seem impeckable, she is quite happy to be subordinate to the other two, she skips around happily, has already explored on her own - I'm really fallen for this little lady. She has yet to start laying and is twenty-one weeks old.
  • Trouble - a big, black hen, with grey legs and a grey beak - a tiny bit older than Conker, but much bigger at present and obviously more dominant. When we introduced the hens, Couven and Trouble squared up and ripped chunks out of each other - quite worrying to watch! Trouble is Couven's size already, and has a lethal beak. Trouble laid an egg in the cat basket last night (on her first night with us), after I separated all the girls for some peace. Make no mistake about it, Trouble is an impressive hen and Anna and I both thought that when the "pecking order battle" was over, Trouble would come out on top - Couven would be relegated to second best.
  • Today I separated the hens whilst at work - Conker and Trouble (from the same pen at the farm) in the run, the Couvmeister in the coop. All had access to food, shelter and water (even though that froze within a couple of hours!)
  • When I returned from work, after checking on Cutlery, I allowed all our girls (apart from Cutlery of course) out onto the garden, to battle again - in the hope that either Couven or Trouble would back down quickly.
  • And so it came to be in fact. Trouble and Couven squared up to each other again, and whilst the Couvster got a hit in, Trouble took a little nick out of Couven's comb and that was that - Couven immediately got the message and backed down. There's only room for one dominant hen in the garden, and whilst Anna and I hoped it would be Couven (who is well over a YEAR older than Trouble after all), it was of course, the impressive-looking Trouble who came out on top.
  • Never fear though - I ensured Couven was cared for - I gave her special attention, and vaselined her bloody comb. She's fine - a bit of a dented ego (temporary I'm sure) and a bit of a cut - but thats all. She's certainly very wary of Trouble now and tends to run away rather than get stuck in and hurt again. Poor Couvs!
  • The strange thing is with hens is that pecking order battles seem inevitable I'm sure and they look quite frightening - but at roost time - they all cuddle up and are best friends again! That said, I did have to put Trouble in the coop tonight - she didn't seem sure where to find her bed, even though Conker went in of her own accord and actually ousted Couven from her bed (in a sweet way!)
  • All three hens are fast asleep now, huddled together and Cutlery is in her box inside.
  • I think I will keep them separated until Couven's comb has healed (chickens go WILD for blood) and that should be that - our new additions have settled down very well (I hope!)
  • I will, of course, bring you photographs of all three, ASAP.

Saturday 27 November 2010

Swift Half update - 27th November 2010






  • Today's post was going to centre around my new (and final) Black Rabbit photography book (vol III) as I have published it last week. You can get a sneak preview on the large tab at the foot of this home page.


  • Unfortunately though, as those of you who visit my facebook page will know, my favourite hen of our two, "Cutlery", has taken a severe turn for the worse this week and I don't think she'll be with us for much longer -if she doesn't die in the next two days (naturally) I have a vets appointment for tuesday evening -and the kindest thing then would be to have her destroyed humanely I feel.


  • If anyone reading this knows our hens ("Couven" and "Cutlery"), you'll know that they have been a wonderful addition to the garden at Swift Half over the past 20 months or so - an absolute joy for me - and a real sense of peace when I return home from work. They are friendly, inquisitive, relatively intelligent birds -really fun to be around.


  • We got them from a breeder in Hook Norton last spring - and whilst training them to eat their pellets, cleaning them out, worming them, giving them insecticide treatments, vaselining their combs and wattles last winter and protecting them from our foxes has been trying at times, they've repaid our efforts a thousandfold times over.


  • Cutlery was the first to do everything. The first to come out the stange coop on day one in our garden, the first to lay, the first to jump on my lap when I hand fed them, the first to allow us to pick them up, the first to jump on my shoulder, or foot or even head!


  • She has always been a bit errr.... "special" though. Her comb and wattles never really developed, she went off laying pretty quickly - then laid un-shelled and /or broken eggs. Her poos have never been as well-formed as her sisters and she's been slower in the races for months - in fact she only ever won one race (which I didn't film unfortunately).


  • She has had very sloppy poos for a few months now, which meant that the wonderfully fluffy ginger feathers below her vent have been permanently caked in faeces. You wash her and she immediately poos down herself again - very disconcerting.


  • That all said, up until the middle of this week, I had no worries about her, other than the normal "Cutlery worries" - dirty bum, bit slow etc... Last weekend she helped Anna and her sister with the weeding in the rear (rear) garden and up until wednesday of this week, she was walking around quite content, able to jump up onto ledges etc...


  • But from wednesday onwards, she started to fail, quite badly. She weighs virtually nothing, is not preening, not eating hardly anything (unless we hand feed her norty treats) and cannot even really walk properly. I had her inside yesterday and as I type this she's in a box beside me, still, with her head under her wing.


  • Its hearbreaking to be fair, even though she is "only a chicken". I've racked my brains trying to work out whether I've done something wrong - but I honestly don't think I have. They have been fed layer pellets as a staple, with the odd treat here and there, they have had the run of the huge gardens very often (most days for hours and hours). They have had fresh water with tonic (apple cider vinegar), insecticide power (no mites) and have been wormed to schedule. Have they caught trich from the local wild birds? I doubt it -I've always been sure to keep the girls and wild birds fed and watered separately - in fact I got so concerned that people in the locality were not cleaning their bird feeders regularly (after I saw first hand (for the first time) what Trich does to garden birds, that I took all my bird feeders down and only fed the chickens. I still only feed tits, jays and woodpeckers - no finches or pigeons have anything to eat here. So I don't think its Trich, nor worms, nor mites. Do I think its EYP - Egg Yolk Peritonitis? Quite possibly, but we suspected this before with her and treated her accordingly, with vet medicine. She responded well.


  • So why is she on the way out then, after only 20 months? I have no idea, but as I've written, she has always been a little "fragile" - maybe all this effort with bad eggs, bad poos, no comb development etc.. has caught up with the poor girl. I don't think we could have done anything more for our girls - we got two and I think one was always just a "duff chicken". Couven on the other hand is racing around the garden still (even as I type) and is fighting fit.


  • What now? Well, I hope she dies in her "sleep", (or recovers of course) but if not, I think we'll probably have her destroyed on Tuesday. If that is the case, I will be very sad indeed and I will desparately miss my "special" hen.


  • If that does happen, Couven will be left on her own until we get some more hens (two we think) to join her. Chickens are social animals and should never be housed on their own. We are already thinking of getting two Columbian Blacktails to join Couven (who is a Warren or Bovan-Goldline depending on what breeder you buy from). As for names - well I can't call another hen "Cutlery" I'm afraid. Maybe we'll continue down the Baroque German route and have Pachelbel or Knobelsdorf, Schinkel or even Haltenberger?


  • I leave you with two photos of our girls - the first (Cutlery RHS looking "back) was taken on 17th May 2009 -the first day we had our girls and the second (Cutlery to the left, "in the lead") was taken on 12th October 2010 - the last photo I took of both girls.


  • Finally a video - from my youtube channel - of one of my girls races. Happier days. Good girl Cutters.






Thursday 25 November 2010

Swift Half update (again) - 25th November 2010



  • Just a quickie to show you that the blue tit, whilst escaping from the hawk, did indeed get trapped in the feeder.

  • (A great tit also got trapped today after fleeing the hawk for a fourth time!)
  • Today was the first day I've seen any female woodpecker back at the garden since the summer - the summer eh - feels like years ago already!

Swift Half update - 25th November 2010







    Click any photo (twice) to enlarge


  • A bit of an incredible morning in the garden this morning - with a female sparrowhawk terrorising the feeding birds - twice.



  • On one of her fly-bys -a terrified blue tit escaped her talons by getting into the caged peanut feeder, where it became trapped unfortunately.



  • In the shots above, the "rustic" looking peanut feeder has a trapped blue tit inside (not that you'll see that from these photos).



  • The female hawk became very interested in peanuts briefly, but worked out pretty quickly that she couldn't break into the feeder - and even if she did, two blue tit breasts wouldn't be worth the effort.



  • She flew off and about an hour later came back to explode the birds from the garden again (I'd freed the blue tit by then).



  • A beautiful bird and a pleasure to see in the garden, always.



  • Couven (our strong hen) alarm-called for about 5 minutes during the hawk attacks and talking of our hens, poor old cutlery really is under the weather now. Light as a feather, very slow, no energy at all - I've tried everything with her - but now I'm not sure she'll make it to christmas.



  • As I type this, I have her inside, in the warm, in a box with her favourite warm mash and cold fresh water. She's eaten and drank and now she's asleep. Cross your fingers grapple fans...

General (county) update - 25th November 2010

  • Just a quickie re the county as I have some exciting goings-on at "Swift Half" to report (above).
  • After a no-show at the box yesterday, our local barn owl gave me the run around this morning also - I saw fly from the box at about 7am - and then lost it. I rather think this cold snap is keeping it on its toes - and it has more than one roost...
  • Plenty of fieldfares and redwing gorging on the berries in the flood plains this morning and two buzzards also - they seem to be getting more and more common on my walks these days.

Tuesday 23 November 2010

Swift Half update - 23rd November 2010



  • Its still like bleedin' bambi in the garden right now! Got back from my dawn owl ramble to find three jays in the garden, two male woodpeckers and all manner of passerines - great tits, blue tits, starlings, robins, chaffinches. Its lovely to see them all though!

  • Regarding the woodpeckers - just like last year - the dominant male woodpecker seems to have a brighter red nape stripe than the less dominant male woodpecker.

  • Regarding the jays, we (like all the jays I've attracted to our gardens over the years) have blue-eyed jays and brown-eyed jays. Are the jays like myself and Anna (male blue eyes, female brown eyes?) I doubt it - I get the feeling eye colour is not sex-dependent in jays - its just the jays I've seen have either blue or brown eyes and its generally the blue-eyed jays who rule the roost. If anything I get the impression that like a lot of the animal kingdom, its actually the female who is dominant!

General (County) update - 23rd November 2010

  • Our wintering barn owl seems set on claiming the local box for himself. I say himself because at 06:30am this morning, I watched a male tawny owl and our barn owl have a little fisticuffs over the box. Of course the male tawny owl might be in dispute with a femal barn owl. Twit tw-who's to say?
  • On my ramble this morning I also happened across a water rail (in the river under the box) - a bird people rarely see (me included) unless it gets so cold, lake and river margins freeze.

Saturday 20 November 2010

General (County) update (again!) - 20th November 2010



  • A first for me (I think) - two general updates in one day. But there is a reason for that.

  • I set the video taping what I found out later to be Scotland's magnificent win against those pesky seth efrikans and went to see if I could see our barn owl(s) again -leaving their box at dusk.

  • I was to see no barn owls - too many dog walkers about and rather too warm to force the barn owls out early to hunt in the cold.

  • BUT.

  • I normally have to drive 20 odd miles to see our short-eared owls on the ridgeway - but I didn't have to tonight!

  • For the first time since we moved here - I watched a beautiful short-eared owl quarter (hunt) over a scrubby field behind the barn owl box, not half a mile from "Swift Half" and no more than two miles from the centre of one of the biggest towns in southern England.

  • I went for maybe thirty years with only one sighting of a barn owl (near Inverness when I was sixteen) and none of any short-eared owls. Its not many people who can say that within half a mile of their house (near a large town or rural - it matters not) they can go out and see a barn owl and a short-eared owl in the same area on the same day.

  • I feel very privileged indeed.

  • At the top of this post is a terrible photo of the short-eared owl quartering at dusk, this evening (click it twice to enlarge).

General (County) update - 20th November 2010

  • Wonderful news today - at least one barn owl has found our local barn owl box (maybe half a mile from "Swift Half") after the box has been empty since we moved here.
  • I say at least one, as the owl that I saw (with Mr.T on a drizzly dawn walk) today was calling.
  • Trouble at mill though - as the local council have started work on the adjacent flood plain, transforming it into a watery nature reserve - this may well mean diggers coming in over the winter etc...
  • More trouble at mill - the spot where the owl box is is alongside an incredibly popular dog walking spot and path. Even at 7am this morning, in the murk, the owl was distrubed by a jogger innocently running past the box.
  • Well.... we're crossing our fingers and our toes and we desperately hope the owl(s?) stay in the box over winter - giving us a magnificent winter of owl watching ahead!

Sunday 14 November 2010

General (County) update - 14th November 2010





  • Up miles before dawn again (about 3am) and drove through pea-souper fog (caused by an almighty temperature inversion overnight) to the ridgeway, to see if I could get a few shots of a few things.

  • As I drove into the carpark at the top of the ridgeway (emerging out of the fog into clear skies) my foglights picked out maybe around two dozen grey partridge - very nice to see.

  • I managed to find a short-eared owl, sheltering in a pine tree - I'm so glad they're back - maybe I'll try and get a nice photo of our short-eared owls this winter...

  • Other highlights - loads of corn bunting, a couple of buzzards and kestrels, a few redpoll and the most grey partridge I've ever seen - I must have counted three or four dozen during my walk.

  • It was a glorious dawn - the ridgeway to myself, the pea-soup fog below but sun in my eyes - it was rather like flying and looking down on clouds from a plane, for a time.

  • Some photos are posted here (Including one of 14 flying grey partridge), but my two favourite photos are posted in large sizes on my images website.
  • NB. The first photo is of Didcot Power Station cooling towers just peeping through the fog, by the way.

Saturday 13 November 2010

General (County) update - 13th November 2010

  • I have had word that my favourite ducks of all (wigeon) are arriving at our local gravel pits in numbers now (150 yesterday) so I'll try and make time to see them over the next month...
  • I also will try and get my new floating hide up and ready, to make use of our winter wildfowl - I have some specific shots in mind.
  • Waxwings have been reported a few miles away all week. Now if I was a twitcher, or even a birdwatcher proper, I'd have been over to see them by now (I've not seen a waxwing before). I class myself as neither a birdwatcher nor a twitcher and have been busy with chickens, cats and coal tits at home!
  • I'll also try and make time to have a quick walk on the ridgeway - to see the hares and short-eared owls (which must be back there by now). May go before dawn tomorrow...

Swift Half update - 13th November 2010

  • Just a quickie today - I think I've seen a coal tit in the garden once since we moved here. But today I certainly saw one - taking my woodpecker bait. Lovely little birds, a treat to see these days for me, after I grew up with them in our family home's garden constantly.

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Swift Half update - 9th November 2010

  • Another horrible start to the day with high winds and horizontal rain. Better (MUCH better) is promised tomorrow, but on Thursday we'll be back to horizontal driving rain and gale force winds again....
  • Malu brought his first mees inside the house last night - alive of course. I chased him out with it (a young woodmouse) - and he decided to play with it for over an hour.
  • Cutlery (our "special hen") polished off the mangled corpse this afternoon. Sometimes this surprises people - when they hear of the predatory nature of hens. On more than one occasion, I've had to chase the hens 'round the garden as they tried to rip apart a live frog they'd caught in the long grass surrounding the pond. Hens eat meat - live meat - and enjoy doing so....

Sunday 7 November 2010

Swift Half update - 7th November 2010





  • The lull before this week's storms (the first tomorrow morning, the second on thursday), with sunny, still skies today.

  • Took the opportunity to sit in the garden hide and watch our jays, woodpeckers and robins.

General (County) update - 6th November 2010



Friday 5 November 2010

General (County) update - 5th November 2010

  • The very warm start to November has resulted in a couple of sightings of very late swallows in Berkshire over the last few days.
  • The black swans on the Thames have bred again - and now have two very young cygnets to show for their efforts. Black Swans seem to be quite good at this. When I say they breed occasionally at this time of year, because they are originally from Australia and November in Australia is late spring, I kid you not. The Thames black swans obviously think its still spring, the daft so-and-sos. What chance do the liluns have. Who knows?!
  • All change weatherwise this weekend. I type away as rain batters the roof of the house, the wind is switching to a northerly for a time at the weekend - meaning daytime temperatures will be more like 8c instead of 18 - and come Monday night, the county is in for a bit of a rude awakening - a very deep low pressure will hit us - quite a bit of driving rain and gale-force winds -enough to bring some trees down maybe, certainly those still in leaf (not many now) will be shaking a bit...

Swift Half update - 5th November 2010



  • We've had a lot of very warm weather over the last few days (18c in November?!) but that is set to change from tomorrow (see General (County) update - 5th November 2010).

  • Last night Anna spotted yet another caterpillar on the inside back door mat - thats four now - two buff ermine, one sallow kitten and last night, a ruby tiger moth caterpillar. I'm feeding it nettles (like the buff ermines) and will pop it with the other pupae in the outside lav, when it decides it has eaten enough. Could be looking at three lovely moffs in May...

  • I may get a photo of the caterpillar over the weekend to compare with the buff ermine of a few weeks ago.

  • Almost all of the leaves from our damson trees are on the ground now, and boy does the garden look bare. Luscious in the summer - empty as anything come November!

  • Photo of one of our neighbours' best fireworks on my new website - Anna and I will go to the rugby club tomorrow for our firework night - mainly because they'll serve sausages and beer there!