Catch-up time.......

It's a couple of weeks since updating the blog as lots of things going on.

Whipsnade in the snow

The great snowfall managed to bugger up London for a couple of days but nothing in comparison to Whipsnade in Bedfordshire where the snow kept falling and falling! Ten days later and London was almost snow free though we had a very wet garden.

Another visit to Rainham Marshes - nowhere near as cold as our last visit but still lots of ice about. We got some amazing "almosts". Cetti's warbler calling but not seen, a flash, glimpse and rustle in the reeds which was almost probably a water rail and a small brown avian predator that we saw on the ground which was almost probably a female merlin - I hate "almosts" :)

Seeds and potatoes arrived this week. The allotment has been sadly neglected over the winter months as its either been covered in snow or so wet that the clay makes it impossible to work there anyway. Despite that we have been planning what we will be growing this year so its always exciting when seeds and the like arrive. Swift and Maris Peer are the spuds we are growing and lots of squash of various varieties - watch this space. (We have hardly made a dent on the jerusalem artichoke harvest - is all the farting worth it?)

And on to chickens;

Our girls do not like snow.

Despite the cold we are getting 2 - 3 eggs per day as all the Sussex are laying.

I did some work on the skyline nestbox - new funky ladder. Margot and Cybil are using it.

This morning (Sunday) I could have seriously wrung the necks of Cybil and Margot and looked forward to chicken casserole this evening. 7.20a.m. and you should have heard the noise. Why do they make SO much noise before they go and lay an egg? In the interests of neighbourly relations I had put them back in the night shelter and covered the door window with a sack so they had instant night. I could still hear Cybil having a right old cluck for a couple of minutes but they all went to roost and we got an hours grace with the locals - God alone knows what will happen when dawn arrives at 4.55a.m. in summer??


The garden is a complete tip! On the good side the girls have really done a good job on wiping out the highly invasive garlic chives, the down side is that anything that looks like a garlic chive has gone as well (bye crocus!). Still, daffodils and snowdrops are doing okay and the soil has never been worked so hard through scratching and general chicken mining. I am amazed at the devastation 4 chickens can cause i.e. as fast as you brush up and put the soil/leaf compost/bark chips back on the border the little buggers throw it back again. SODS!


Harriet is still broody despite everything we do:

• she is sitting on nothing unless Ruby lays an egg inside then Harriet will go and sit on it. I am tempted to put our ostrich egg in the nestbox as I am sure she would sit on it.


• when I throw her out of the nestbox for the day she goes and just broods anywhere


• when I lock her out of the run and she spends the day in the garden without any problem the second the run is open she rushes straight in and even if she can't get in a nestbox she just snuggles herself in for a good old brood on the shed floor

What will we do with her!

Thoughts of the week:

King vulture egg at London - I cannot tell you how exciting that is (4 years of hard work!)

Bloody civil ceremony doing my head in (but all in a positive way)

Blade Runner (one of my favourite all time films) was based in 2019 - only 9 years until we start getting problems with replicants and me worrying if I can get chickens to the off-world colonies.

In the Midst of Winter

So, I go on about it being cold. "Nesh" is a peculiarly Northern term for not being quite as hardy and cold tolerant as perhaps one should be. Today I was "nesh".

Half the plants in the garden are looking extremely bad, not only is the frost killing them with cold but they are completely dehydrated. I gave in and bought some echiums into the house, a good re-hydration and two out of the three are looking fine, I fear the very tender one has succumbed.

Frost on the chicken run roof

While being on holiday over the festive period it has given the girls free range for garden decimation. Even though it was crisp and frosty, after a good feed all the chickens had a try at dust bathing, and they succeeded in finding a small amount of earth under some large echiums.

As you can see from the photo below, Ruby also got a very brief opportunity to sun bathe.

Weekends are also clean out times. Halfway through cleaning out the shed Harriet decided she wanted to lay an egg so stood there while John rushed and filled up the nest boxes with the appropriate wood shavings and straw. When a girl wants to lay, she will NOT be bothered by the orderlies cleaning the home!

"Come on Dad, I can't lay on newspaper"

So a weekend treat before the great return to work was an early morning bird-watch at Rainham Marshes http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/r/rainhammarshes/index.asp. It's the first time we have visited, no idea why not before as it seems to be our most local RSBP reserve.

Thames estuary on an early sunday morning with the thermometer registering -2 degrees c, it was a real way to wake up and also to wonder how birds manage to seemingly continue as normal in such weather.

Even with the weather and thinking that with such freezing temperatures visiting a marsh (and all that frozen water) was not such a good idea it was in fact wonderful if not slightly bone chilling (as I said before, nesh - gloves don't work as its so long since we had proper cold weather).

However we saw some great birds - a first for both of us was a jack snipe and in the three hours we were there we clocked up 42 species. You can view the list of all the birds we saw at: http://www.birddiary.co.uk/diaryentry.asp?did=6479

Following are some great shots that captured the morning:

Goldfinch on hawthorn and below on fence wire

Coots and waterfowl in a small space of water in an icy lagoon

Grey heron on ice


More chilly coots and gulls

Frosty stonechat - our companions on the walk

The stonechats were very approachable and confident around people

Male reed bunting feeding - not seen one in a while and we saw LOTS at this site

A Day's Escape from Chicken World

Winter always hails the best of good bird-watching if you interested in waterfowl, waders and cold, wet and wild places. After the excesses of the festive period it's always a great excuse to head out on a New Year birdwatch so we headed off to one 0f our favourite haunts for a good walk, some dramatic scenery and some wonderful birds.

Yours truly showing his Christmas tummy to the sea!

First stop was the Power Station area - I have to say that we always find this area a little disappointing despite everybody else on the planet seeing thousands of rarities each visit! To make things worse the little greasy spoon was closed so no full english for breakfast!

However, next site visit was just down the road to the RSPB Dungeness Reserve http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/d/dungeness/index.asp This is a favourite place with usually a good number of waterfowl over the winter months and this visit was no disappointment. And it had a very good start as we saw a female marsh harrier just as we passed thorough the entrance!

Shovelers feeding

Stunning male smew

Male red-crested pochard

All in all we had a really good day - not only did we walk a fair way in some jolly cold weather that burnt off calories but saw some amazing birds (smew were the best) and realised that chickens are not the only birds on the planet.

Checklist for birds seen http://www.birddiary.co.uk/diaryentry.asp?did=6441

And if you do one new for 2009, leave a comment especially fellow city chicken keepers but all welcome - thank you