The robins nesting in the workshop have got four babies. The Systems Administrator discovered the nest, in a small plastic tray intended for keeping screws in, and took some quick photos. It was too dark for great bird photography, but the picture showed four little faces, with beady eyes and proportionately gigantic beaks. The news as of this morning is that they have grown, and are starting to look more like robins. According to the RSPB website their eyes are completely open by eight days, their bodies more or less feathered by ten, and they fledge at fourteen days but can't actually fly for a couple more days after that.
I warned the Systems Administrator that the workshop was about to contain some pedestrian baby robins, and the SA expressed doubts as to how they were going to get out of the plastic drawer if they couldn't fly. I suppose the answer is that they flop down. After all, they managed to get out of my greenhouse tiered shelving for the previous two years. They are tended by their parents for up to three weeks after leaving the nest, especially the father, while the mother prepares herself for the next clutch.
One of the parents flew into the workshop when the SA was there, made it half way to the nest before noticing that there was somebody in the room, did a mid air one hundred and eighty degree turn, and went and fussed about at the opposite end of the workshop as if trying to persuade the SA that the nest was over there. I suppose we can explain decoy behaviour designed to draw potential predators away from the nest without suggesting the robin has a theory of mind about the SA, though it would be fun to believe that it had.
The chickens have learned that they are not supposed to root about in the dahlia bed, and promptly hopped back up on the the rear wall when the SA noticed them in there, and stood on the wall trying to look very casual and as if they hadn't been ripping up my sunflower seedlings and young Eccremocarpus at all. Chickens are quite good at learning stuff, even if they don't have a theory of mind, and know that the sight of the temporary wire barrier being put up next to their run to discourage them from wandering up the side of the wood means that they are about to be let out, hurrying down to their pop hole the moment they see the barrier go up.
The broody hen, after a day and a half or so of not being broody, has reverted to broodiness and didn't come out with the others. I thought some fresh air, exercise and green leaves would be good for her, and mercilessly hiked her out of the nesting box when I checked for eggs. She stood for a few moments, digesting the indignity, then began to shout. Then she was distracted by the sight of some waving grass seed heads, and alternated between shouting and pecking at the seeds, before going and standing in the middle of the gravel and shouting. Then she went back into the run. The SA went to see her and she shouted some more, before retiring to the nesting box.
The other hens have given up forming an orderly flock, and wander off in all directions when let out. If they have a theory of mind it is not very advanced, because they haven't worked out that they are less likely to be let out into the garden if they make it a two person job to look after them. I worked in the back garden, trying to look omnipresent and threatening to foxes, while the SA covered the front. I was passed by one hen on a mission, who went and dug in the bog bed all by herself, while the old lady Maran appeared and stayed with me on the top lawn. Maybe she likes Classic FM. When the time came to usher them back into their run we still had five hens, or rather four free range plus broody already sitting ferociously in her box.
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