the birds

The heat may be a nuisance during the day, but the evenings are glorious.  Sitting outside on the veranda as the sun sinks in the western sky, and listening to the evening chorus, or barbecuing a sausage while the strains of Glenn Miller drift through the open door, is one of the pleasures of living here.  We may spend our winter nights huddled in front of the stove with the study door shut, but in summer the boundaries between inside and outside become blurred.  Or at least, they do in this weather.  Last year in what passed for summer they remained obstinately separate.

We have noticed a song thrush singing at the bottom of the garden, and apparently being answered or challenged by one in the wood.  When I first heard its loud and fluid song I asked the Systems Administrator whether that was the blackcap, not being great at bird identification, and song thrushes being rare visitors to the garden.  The SA spotted the singer at the bottom of the garden perched in the top of the not-a-swamp-cypress, and said it could be a blackcap, while I insisted it was too large, more blackbird sized than blackcap.  The SA managed to train the binoculars on it, and announced that it was a song thrush.  It is lovely to have thrushes around the place.

Less appealing was another dead baby bird, just starting to grow feathers, this time outside the front door.  I am beginning to wonder whether they are anything to do with nest predation, or whether they have died of heat stress and the parent birds have cleared the corpses out of the nest. They are quite revolting, and already larger than a robin or finch, so maybe they were going to be pigeons, or corvids?

The hot weather has set the erstwhile broody hen off again.  I let them out for a run yesterday afternoon, and she wouldn't come out the egg box.  I wondered whether she were laying an egg, but she took too long, then wondered whether she might be ill, but when I opened the box to have a look at her she pecked me vigorously.  This morning she came charging out of the house when I opened the pop hole, ready for her share of stale brown bread soaked in water, and not looking in the least ill.  The Systems Administrator is my guru on broodiness, having done in-depth research on various chicken keeping forums, and apparently they are liable to slip back into it, and hot weather makes it worse.

It is a waste that we don't want to hatch any eggs, since a good broody used to be a valuable commodity.  I once read of someone who used to lend his to a local fisherman's wife in exchange for lobsters.  Not that I want any lobsters (or know any fishermen wanting to hatch eggs).  The trouble with letting her raise a clutch is that some of them would be bound to be cockerels, and neither of us are willing to go the full Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and kill our own Sunday roast.  And we don't actually need any more hens, either.  The Speckeldies have so far been such tough survivors and prolific layers compared to the pure bred Marans that we have more than enough eggs.  As I try to balance the number of times I give any one person a box, so as not to overdo it and create an unwanted sense of obligation, there are times when I feel I need more friends and relations.  The SA is not much help in finding recipients for the surplus, having a social life at this time of the year that revolves around cricket.  Apparently sitting all day at Lords with a box of eggs is not convenient.

Our Ginger is reacting to the heatwave by moulting.  The house began to fill with a swirling mass of white and ginger fur, and every time I looked at him he had a tuft of torn-out fur between his toes. I examined him suspiciously in case he had fleas, or mange, but he looks clean and ebulliently healthy, merely eager to divest himself of some fur.  A fresh coating of loose hair sticks to my hands each time I stroke him.