BORN IN THE GUTTER

.. During a lightning strike

SNAPPED: Mike Smith snaps the storm

WE HAD the mother of all storms in the Scottish Borders the other night just after enjoying the hottest July day on record ... it was, a storms go, bloody terrifying and one bolt zapped my TV satellite dish sending shards of lightning whizzing around the courtyard. The force of the bolt was so strong it knocked out the power in our home and since hubby was away I thought better of trying to sort out the fuse box until the morning. I went to bed pitying the poor animals outside on a night like that.

 Little did I know that my white peahen Philomena was sitting on eggs overhead. It was only the next day I noticed the peafowl gathering on the roof top staring down at the gutter; they're such curious creatures I knew something was going on and so decided to join in on the spectacle and climbed up the ladder. As I reached the top and peered over the wall there was my lovely white peahen looking slightly ruffled and agitated. Just at her feet was a titchy ball of fluff and as it moved I realised I was looking at the first born of the peafowl; he or she (it'll take some weeks before we find out) looked quite unremarkable bearing in mind the stunning beauty of Harry, the father. I am assuming the white peacock is the father since he and Philomena were bought together. The new mother was flustered. Certainly she had picked a fox proof location to hatch her egg (only one) but there was no way down for the little one and so I decided to intervene. I went back down the ladders and got an old fishing net then returned to the scene and, after some death defying manoevres, scooped up the chick and gingerly returned to terra firma. Once in the courtyard I released Storm (an appropriate name, I think) and Philomena swooped down to be reunited. Harry came around and shared in a family meal before he started getting a tad rough with the youngster and so I moved him on and out.

A NIGHT ON THE TILES: Little Storm at mum's feet

Quite why Harry (left on the left) began pecking the chick's head in such an aggressive way is beyond me but it certainly wasn't a term of endearment from where I was standing.

GOTCHA! Storm in hand

Now I'm going to have to ring around and find out what I should be doing, if anything, to make sure the next generation of peafowl are going to thrive.

* Three of my four missing peahens have now returned none the worse for their experience. I have a feeling they'd found another home in the district for a few weeks and, on hearing the dreadful screeches and mating calls from the peacocks, decided to return.

SOHO 2 SILO SNIPPET

 I may have to apologise to the dreaded fox ... two of my three missing peahens turned up last night after an absence of some weeks. The three peacocks looked very happy but not quite as relieved as the other two peahens who've had quite a demanding time during the mating season! Welcome back, girls!

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING

.. Charlotte makes me out to be a right Charlie!

 WATCHING little Charlotte race around a field today while her mum and the rest of the nannies looked on, two things struck me.
 Firstly, she's starting to grow horns and secondly she doesn't squat when she pees leading me to two conclusions: the emergence of horns shows a natural, healthy development but I am beginning to think that she is a he!

BUDDING STAR: The two black dots

of fur also reveal emerging horns

 Charlotte, or more appropriately Charlie, was born on April 23 - St George's Day - and when I picked her up to give her a cuddle told my other half that we had a little she goat after a swift glance under her tail. Only a few hours old she seemed strong, healthy and of the female gender.

GOATING AROUND: Charlie with Daisy

 But now barely a month old, Charlie is already beyond a cuddle as the kid finds the call of the wild far more alluring than me waving a can of goat mix, so I am unable to check more thoroughly if she is a he. Today she interrupted her play to stop for a pee and, unlike the other nannies who squat, Charlie stood there without ceremony to answer the call of nature. Since the flow of liquid came from an unexpected direction I am beginning to think my "it's a girl" proclamation was a tad premature.
 He-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is was informed by phone earlier today and said - no doubt with smug satisfaction - that he will clarify the situation when he heads back North to the Borders. I must admit the very thought of hubby running around the pasture trying to grab hold of Charlie fills me with joy and I will try and record the moment on video for you.

PIPSQUEAK!

.. There's a mouse in the house

ACTUALLY this "wee, sleekit, cowran, tim'rous beastie" * would have seen me running for cover and shrieking like a boy soprano if I'd spotted him in a pasta jar in my flat in Soho.

 However, three years of living in the countryside has toughened me up when confronted with such furry, little creatures ... and after an initial start, I did afford myself a little chuckle before releasing him into a nearby wood pile.

Add caption

 Although how he got inside the birdseed bin is beyond me since the lid is usually weighted down with a log to stop my feathered friends from trying to sneak a free meal.

 However, in future, I will take a good look inside the bin before plunging my hands downwards to grab the seed. Quite how I would've reacted if I'd physically grabbed the mouse, I couldn't say and nor do I want to put it to the test.

 Hubby was amused but I'm not so sure how he would have reacted since a big spider made an appearance from underneath the TV last month and he leapt from the sofa like a scalded cat.

 * In honour of the great Bard of Scotland below is Robbie Burns masterpiece poem To A Mouse which he wrote, apparently, after turning his plough, accidentally, through a nest of mice while he was farming some land.

 

Wee, sleekit, cowran, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' wast,
An' weary Winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald.
To thole the Winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

Saints Above - a success story at last

.. No kidding, meet baby Charlotte

ROLO: Leader of the pack, or rather herd

THIS winter I took possession of a small herd of wild British Primitive Goats from a lovely farmer in Cumbria who, because of health reasons, had been forced to sell up.
 The goats' main purpose is really conservation management because they're not prolific milk producers and since they're wirey, boney animals you would be hard pressed to breed them for meat. I thought they'd be ideal to bring some of the wilder pastures under control the natural way while fertilising the ground as they went!
 However I'm wondering if they could become a bit of a tourist attraction because the history of this herd is staggering - their lineage can apparently be traced right back to St Cuthbert, one of the most significant saints in Christianity with a cult following.

DAISY: One of the smaller goats in my

herd of British Primitives

St Cuthbert: 634-687

He died in 687 but his followers decided almost 200 years later to set out on a journey to find a fitting, lasting burial place for him after the threat of a Viking invasion, and since everything took months if not years in medieval times, such pilgrimages involved a great deal of forward planning.
 So when they left their island base at Lindisfarne Priory they took with them plenty of livestock to eat on the way. They wandered for a full seven years, lugging the saint's bones about with them, until in 883 they were given a church at Chester-le-Street, near Durham.
 In the late 10th century a fresh Danish invasion threatened, so Cuthbert's bones were moved again, this time to Ripon, over 300 years after he had first come to the great Abbey as a master. After only a few months at Ripon, Cuthbert was once more carted off.  In 1104 they were finally moved to the new Durham cathedral, where a magnificent shrine had been prepared. During this final move the body was found to be perfectly preserved as was the head of St. Oswald (apparently placed with Cuthbert's body for safety).
 Sorry I digress ... you must be wondering what this has to do with my goats. Well it appears that the herd accompanying St Cuthbert's entourage were so badly behaved they either escaped or were cut loose to wander wild and freely around Northumbria and the Borders.

FAMILY AFFAIR: Mum, Ivy and little Charlotte enjoying a

rare bit of sunshine in the Borders

 There are still wild goats that roam around the Cheviots to this day and my little herd is an off shoot. So that's their claim to fame.
 All I can say is that this wandering gene must still be implanted because my goats get all over the place - including the top of a neighbour's roof! They are great climbers but I have managed to bring them under control courtesy of an electric fence. After a wee zap on their noses, they no longer seem curious about the grass on the other side of the fence, thank goodness.

A FEW HOURS OLD: The new kid on

the block makes her first appearance

 One of my goats - Lily - ate a couple of rhododendrum leaves when she escaped ... and that could've proved fatal. Myself and a friend who is training to become a vet, spent a good deal of time over two days pumping her full of Earl Grey tea to cleanse out the toxins. It worked.
 When I took possession of the herd I was told all the nannies were carrying courtesy of the magnificent looking billy or male goat, called Rolo. So far only one - Ivy - has produced a kid and she was without name until the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge named their second born Charlotte.  So please meet Charlotte - the next generation of pure bred British Primitive Goat. And what a lively little cracker she is proving to be.
 There was a heart-stopping moment when she didn't appear to want to take milk from her mum but he-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is intervened. A sharp pull on the udder and a squirt of warm milk in Charlotte's face did the trick - I was well impressed.
 Despite her near brush with death, Lily looks as though she's fit to burst and so I'm hoping she will produce a kid soon but Daisy and Rose look too skinny to be pregnant. We'll see ... watch this space.

THREE LITTLE MAIDS

.. Now all are gone

 I recently sent out a snippet reporting how I'd seen a fox being chased across a field by all 8 of my peafowl ... of course appearances can be deceptive and the master of deception as regular readers know is The Fox!
 A few days later three of my peahens disappeared without trace leaving me to conclude that the silly birds were lured in to a trap by the cunning foxes which plague these parts of the Borders. And what better way than to lure someone into a false sense of security by allowing them to believe they are the hunters and not the hunted.

OUT-FOXED: Last one standing. My Indian peafowl was one

of a quartet but now she's on her own ... and without a name 

 Either that or someone netted the birds but that theory seems most unlikely unless any readers from this region can tell me otherwise after experiencing similar unexplained disappearances.
 Their absence has not only caused me some upset but now that the mating season is upon us you can imagine the three peacocks - Albert, Edward and Harry - are non too pleased by the shortage of peahens.
 Left standing is Philomena, a white peahen and the last of the Indian blue peahens. I'd not given her a name but any suggestions are most welcome <she's pictured right>. If they are laying eggs I've not seen any so far and am unlikely too since they roam freely during the day and perch high up in a sycamore tree at dusk.

Everything is a source of fun
Nobody's safe, for we care for none
Life is a joke that's just begun
Three little maids from school 

SILO SNIPPET

 UNBELIEVABLE! Yesterday just before dusk a magnificent looking fox ambled across the pasture ... with all eight peafowl in tow. He was like the Pied Piper as he trotted over the grass followed by five peanhens and the three peacocks. Was he trying to lure the birds into the bushes for a quick bite or were they chasing him away? Suffice to say I ran out across the fields and using the lure of corn brought the daft birds back to home base. Can anyone out there explain this bizzare behaviour?

EGG-GATE

.. Or Part II of the goose egg drama 

SINCE I dived in to the alien world of the small-holder, when I moved to the Scottish Borders from Soho in 2011, I've learned some weird and wonderful things like how to unblock an egg-bound hen using olive oil and hot steam and how to give a reluctant cockerel a wash 'n' blow dry and foot spa to get rid of a red mite infestation.

 But I think my latest foray into animal husbandry takes some beating. Recently I regaled you with the tale of my goose Vera whose attempt to build a nest and lay some eggs was being thwarted by a scavenging weasel or stoat.

 Vera then seemed to throw in the towel and stopped laying altogether. A friend of mine suggested I put a handful of golf balls inside her nest to encourage her to carry on ... and it worked. The Toulouse goose started laying more eggs and, as a precaution, I took a couple and replaced them with more golf balls to deter the intruder. Seemingly unaware of this duplicity Vera has carried on laying and yesterday she began sitting on the nest full-time.

 The nest is inside a ramshackled lean-to hubby built last year when Vera laid more than a dozen eggs - none of which hatched. The previous year she only hatched one but sadly Peewee, her offspring, was taken by a fox just as his feathers were starting to come through.

The job of returning the eggs

would prove more difficult 

 So you see Vera's attempts at motherhood have been punctuated with failure and tragedy which I think has also been reflected in Jack the gander's moods.

HATCHING HOUSE: Jack guards the
outside while Vera sits on her nest

 Now that she has moved out of the goose house full-time to sit on the eggs, Jack has been patrolling outside with all the ferocity of a pit bull backed up by Bluebell. Trying to return the two eggs I'd taken previously has not been an easy task. Whenever Vera has taken a break from sitting on the eggs Bluebell steps in and Jack is never far away from guarding the lean-to. This time all three geese are determined that there will be a new generation to rear and follow them.

Even the arrival of the postman, who now no longer gets out of his mail van, has failed to distract Jack from his sentry duty and nor could he be bribed by a bag of tasty morsels. As you can see from my amateur video, Jack is not in the mood for shenanighans.

 Eventually, after using some stealth I managed to put the two eggs down next to Vera last night as she was napping and this morning I noticed they were safely tucked under her along with the golf balls. Incubation is going to take between 28 and 35 days so I'm hopeful we might have some goslings before the General Election in the UK on May 7.

FEATHERING HER NEST: Vera pulls feathers from her ches

to line the nest including golf balls as well as eggs!

 Of course there's many a slip between then and now. We have to keep the area fox free and Vera will be most vulnerable at night after dusk. There's also a large badger sett nearby so we need to ensure that they're not around - one badger did take Queenie, a swedish Kohn goose from her nest the day before they were due to hatch back in 2013 hence hubby's decision to build the lean-to around the nest.

 If you have any tips please let me know. Hopefully the next reports on Jack and Vera will be happy ones.

ANOTHER MYSTERY WHODUNNIT ... AND IT'S NOT MR FOX!

.. Chief suspect still four legged and furry

 REGULARS to this blog know all about the trials and tribulations I've experienced since quitting the high life in Soho for the good life in the Scottish Borders more than three years ago.

WEASEL snapped trying to pop a goose 

egg

 The chief architect of my misery has always been the fox - and at every turn they (there's been a few) have wiped out my entire turkey flock apart from one very nervous Bourbon Red called Ant; possibly one goose, definitely more than 20 hens, an aviary of white doves, a couple of peafowl, a few domestic pheasant and a couple of guineau fowl.
 Over the winter months, apart from a couple of sightings of a small fox, my little menangerie has escaped unscathed and now that we are full swing in to Spring we're still ever vigilant for Mr Fox.
 However we now have a new mystery - not quite a murder one - unless you subscribe to life beginning in the egg. Vera, one of my Toulouse geese has laid around a dozen over the last couple of weeks in a small lean to built by hubby in 2014 when she began nesting last Spring.

LINE UP OF SUSPECTS: Stoat, weasel and ferret, whodunnit?

 Each night she heads back to her usual home to sleep and every morning she goes to her lean-to to lay an egg. I noticed the other day some of the eggs were smashed which caused no amount of outrage from Jack, the gander.

 He has now taken to attacking anything with a pulse and even the postman refuses to leave the safety of his delivery van these days, so ferocious is Jack.

 I removed two eggs the other day after Vera managed to amass four - just in case the peacocks or guineau fowl were sneaking in and nicking the eggs.
 By last night she'd amassed half a dozen  and I thought any day now she'll start to sit full time on her collection but this morning, as you can see from my short video, I found fragments of smashed egg shell. I'd secured the lean-to last night after I'd locked up the rest of the birds and the peafowl had gone to roost, so I knew the egg thief must be an outside as opposed to an inside job.

 Since the lean-to was locked I knew it was fox and badger proof so I started to ask around among countrywise folk. I couldn't understand what had got in to eat the eggs. We've now narrowed it down to a number of suspects: Rats, stoats, weasels or ferrets.

 Somehow I don't think it's rats. Since I introduced three partly feral cats the rat and mice population has drastically been reduced ... and that could be the problem. These creatures are natural prey to stoats, weasels and ferrets so if there are any hanging around the farm their regular rodent diet has been severely disrupted.

 So how to solve the problem before Vera stops laying any more eggs. Balls! Golf balls to be precise. I've placed them on Vera's nest and as I type she's just sat on the nest to lay another egg. I will

remove that and slip in another golf ball tonight.
 The plan is when Vera starts sitting full time I will somehow replace the balls with the real eggs I collected previously.
 I'm not sure if this is going to work so keep following and I will give updates. As usual, any feedback and/or advice would be most welcome.
 As you can see from the last video Vera is hacked off and Jack is more angry than usual - even wanting to bite the hand that feeds him which is really disconcerting since I'm not usually targetted by the gander.

TO BE FRANK

..OR how pleasant pheasant is turning into a stalker

FRANKLY I'm not impressed with Spring 

2015

 IT'S the mating season and don't we know it.
 The gardens are ringing with a variety of sounds as song birds pair up with their ideal mates and busy themselves building nests.
 Even Horatio the Scots Dumpy cockerel has got his mojo back. Not only has he found his cock-a-doodle-do but he is finally fulfilling his role in the hen pen with gusto.

FRANKLY I'm not interested,  says 

Thumberlina as Frank looks on

 As regulars to this blog know, my rare breed Scots Dumpys were nearly wiped out some months ago by a couple of foxes that broke in to their crees overnight. Only five survived and they've been in a terrible state ever since.
 However now they have a new challenge ... an overly amorous pheasant who is either too lazy to find his ideal partner or he thinks he is a rooster! I'm not sure which, at the moment, because he has started acting like a cockerel around the hens.
 He starts furiously grunting and pecking at the ground as though he's just found a secret stash of corn or tasty morsels. It's a well tried and tested ruse used by most cockerels to attract curious hens and for some bizarre reason it seems to work with alarming frequency. However, while it works for Horatio the other Scots Dumpys are none too impressed by Frank's persistent antics and, as a result, when they see him coming they give him the cold shoulder, or the hen equivalent.

 I've shot two little video here so you can bear witness to Frank's antics. Last month his focus was purely on the white hen Thumberlina but now he has extended his repartee to the others and they're just not interested, as you can see from the clip on the right.
 In my second video, below,
you can see and hear him rutting around to attract everyone's attention, but the hens are singularly unimpressed by his performance.
 Despite being semi wild, poor Frank has now taken to stalking the feathered females inside and around their hen pen. Horatio has avoided confontation so far but I can see trouble down the line if Frank continues to stalk the Dumpys.
                                                                                 
It's such a shame we can't find him a female companion as his scarlet face mask looks quite stunning and while I'm sure he'd rock a few boats in the pheasant world he's simply not cutting the mustard as far as the hens are concerned.
 He-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is reckons there's only one solution; he thinks we should eat Frank! Of course that's his solution to most problems: let's eat it before the fox does.
 However dear readers, I promise here and now that whatever fate has in store for our white cock pheasant it won't be as a table bird.
 My response to hubby was not dissimilar to the final line of the classic 1939 film Gone With The Wind as Clark Gable turns to Vivien Leigh and says: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

STRING UP LITTER LOUTS

.. Or, more countryside trials

FARMERS have a reputation for being grumpy old gits and I think I'm morphing in to one!
 As I become more immersed into matters countryside, I am increasingly looking down with scorn and disdain on "the townies" and beginning to realise just how frustrating they can be.
 There is a wee bit of hypocrisy here, I know, because having spent 15 years living in Soho I probably epitomised a typical city dweller ... the slightest whiff of a rural smell would send me scurrying for a canned spray of 'fresh countryside air' (oh the irony!)

HOW LONG is this piece of string? Hard to tell since it's knotted

and looped firmly around the legs of the peahen

 I remember sneering when 400,000 country folk marched through central London in September 2002 to highlight the needs of rural communities and express outrage over the proposed ban on fox hunting with dogs in England and Wales.
 Now, having experienced and witnessed firsthand the devastation the fox can cause in rural communities, I'd be putting on my wellies, jeans and Barbour jacket to join them.
 I now realise the importance of closing gates, driving slowly around countryside lanes especially during the lambing season, waiting patiently as sheep are herded down a road while being transferred from one field to another and picking up litter as I go out for a stroll.
 There's nothing more infuriating than finding an empty pop can that someone's thrown away ... apart from a sheep finding it first and cutting its foot. And so, when I saw one of my peahens limping a few days back I spewed out a load of curse words.

IN DISTRESS: Unhappy peahen grabbed after flailing around

on the ground, helpless

 The poor bird had somehow managed to get both her feet tied in a knot of carelessly discarded orange string. From where it came I don't know but it wasn't from the bales of hay and straw I use. I always make a point of giving twine like that to my elderly neighbour who is a keen gardener and he recycles such things for his vegetable patch when tying back plants.
 The peahen spent most of the day sitting, perched on the roof while I spent most of the day waiting for her to come down. I could see she was becoming increasingly distressed and I knew if I couldn't catch her then she would fall prey to a fox.
 By dusk all of the peafowl head towards one of the tallest trees on the land and there they perch high up out of the way of any predator, so I knew I had to catch her while it was still daylight. As it happened, shortly before dusk I found her flapping helpessly on the ground near the trees and was able to throw my jacket over her and take her into the kitchen.
 She struggled and made an awful honking sound which set off the other peafowl who responded to the distress call in similar fashion. While I held her wings down she started to use her beak to lash out as I think she thought her time was up.

PEAHEN cautiously watches me watching

her watching me, after string drama

GINGERLY stepping out 24 hours after 

stepping in to some discarded string

 Painstakingly, using a pair of scissors, I managed to cut away the string which had caused flesh wounds at the top of her legs and took her back outside where she shrieked and flew up in to the tree to join her seven comrades.
 Today she seemed none the worse for her experience but kept a safe distance from me as I threw out some bird seed. If I could get my hands on the idiot who tossed away that string without a second thought I would probably be making garters now out of his guts.

A HINT OF SPRING BRINGS ... CONFUSION

Or how some birds are having an identity & gender crisis ..

PHEASANT SURPRISE: He's looking for a mate but Frank sits on the 

fence when it comes to finding the right one

 SPRING might not have yet sprung but it is clear from the activity of the birds they sense it's just around the corner. However, there has been an array - and display - of confusing antics from some of the birds here in the Borders.
 For instance Frank, my white pheasant, is obviously in need of a mate but his amorous intentions towards the hens, in particular Thumberlina, have caused quite a flap.
 His little grunts, dance and wing display infront of the Scots Dumpys has caused Horatio, the cockerel, no end of alarm and despite his own wing-flapping and aggressive stance towards the romeo pheasant, Frank

THUMBERLINA is not at all interested

in anyone but Horatio the cockerel

appears to be undeterred. He is, without doubt, lonely and has been ever since a fox took his mate last year. However trying to get my hands on a white hen pheasant has proved challenging to say the least.
 White pheasants are unusual and the reason why Frank has probably survived the local shooting season two years running is that veteran hunters do their best to avoid bringing down white pheasants as some shoots impose penalties (for fun) which can run into hundreds of pounds.
 But loneliness is not just affecting Frank. The most recent to lose his companions - Ant my Bourbon Red turkey - has started to try and strut his stuff among a bevvy of new peahens who arrived last autumn. Fanning his feathers like the adult peacocks is just not impressing, or fooling, anyone and I'm having to decide if I should consign him to the cooking pot or get him some new turkey friends.

DOWN IN THE DUMPS: Poor Ant

THIS WAY LADIES: I'm a peacock
not a turkey, seriously!

 He either looks manically depressed (eyes left) or is trying to copy the Indian and white peacocks, and failing miserably which sends him into the utter depths of despair, (eyes right).

 But perhaps the strangest sight of all is brought to you courtesy of one of four peahens I acquired from a place near Dundee towards the end of last year. The quartet are aged between eight and eighteen months old and were brought in after it became clear the peacocks were facing a severe shortage of companions from the opposite sex.

 However, as the following photographs show, there's some confusion over the exact role the peahens will be playing when Spring is finally sprung.

 

 This one has gone all butch and  started fanning her feathers out like her male counterparts. She's barely a year old but she looks so funny as she twirls around spreading out her meagre display of quills followed by the stamping of her feet.
 Her three mates look on bemused and bewildered but she just started doing this, especially on a morning, in response to the peacocks doing exactly the same. However, as you can see from the photographs below, they actually have plumage worthy of spreading and showing off. Their displays can be quite stunning and impressive and yet their feathers are still not fully developed.

COPY ME: It seems some of the otherbirds

are copying Harry & his mates

 Ed, photographed in full display below, arrived unwanted from a posh place near Warwick where his loud, rooftop screeching was driving local folk mad. He is one of two Indian peacocks, the other being Albert who lost his 'Victoria' to the fox last year.

INSPIRING: Ed shows of his new feathers

 Joining Ed and Albert is Harry, above right, a bit of a dandy who has just started to get all of his white feathers back after going through a bit of a shabby stage. His partner Philomenia was one of two white peahens but her companion became yet another victim of the fox in 2014.
 On an evening all of the peafowl roost in one of the tallest trees nearby and don't come down until they are sure the area is fox-free. I'm hopeful they will remain as alert throughout the coming year although, despite all the foxes taken by the local Jed Forest hunt, I saw one blighter just before dusk a few days ago. I swear he was grinning as he looked back towards me.

HOOTS MON* ...

.. "It's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht."

EYES WIDE SHUT: Fred being placed back in 

his Achica box after a feed

 IT WAS freezing cold but the night sky was illuminated by a full, bright moon in a star-studded sky.

 I had been following a big log-carrying lorry towards the Scottish Borders and was driving with extreme caution due to black ice when I noticed something fluffy, swirling around by the lorry's downdraft as we approached Catcleugh Reservoir just north of Otterburn.

 Ever curious - even at 2am - I slowed down and then reversed quarter of a mile until I found what I was looking for ... there, sitting blinking in the middle of the road was a Tawny owl looking slightly dazed and confused.

 As I walked towards the little fellow I half expected him to flap his wings and vanish but he sat there and allowed me to pick him up. His only response was to dig his talons around my fingers as though he was seeking some sort of comfort or reassurance that he was safe. Well that's what I thought anyway.

 I phoned ahead to he-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is to tell him to expect another guest and then told the story. Hubby is always peeved these little adventures happen when he's not around and so tried to remain unimpressed with my find when I arrived home.

TIRED & UNEMOTIONAL: Fred looks fed-up

with life

 After a quick check on Google I found an old Achica box and fashioned it in to the sort of home a tawny Owl would feel comfortable in and then put him in an outhouse for what remained of the night.

 The following morning I called an animal helpline but it was so busy I decided to try and sort out my feathered companion myself, via picking up information on the 'net.
 Surprisingly, my new best friend was uber calm making me wonder if he was, perhaps, still dazed and confused. He allowed me to pick him up, this time I was wearing red gloves so when he dug in his talons the experience was not as painful as it had been the night before.
 He didn't flap his wings and he allowed me to stroke his feathers.
 I called a friend of mine who keeps birds of prey and he suggested I try feeding the bird with day old chicks and let me have three which I set about chopping and skinning. Not a pleasant task and as it turned out, the owl could not be tempted by the bloody morsels.
 After consulting another owl website I managed to persuade him to take a couple of spoonfuls of catfood but it was obvious he needed specialist help.
 Within half an hour of calling the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (suggested via Twitter by some friends) a wonderful lady arrived in her SSPCA van and inspected Fred; he was named by my daughter.
 The lady, obviously far more experienced at handling owls than me, spread out his wings out and felt around his body and concluded that nothing seemd broken. He was, she said, very boney and underweight suggesting he might just be weak, stressed and in shock which would explain his apathetic appearance.
 She placed him gently in an appropriate owl-carrying box and said he would be cared for in a wildelife centre in Alloa, Clackmannashire until he gets better. She did say she'd let me know of his progress and, of course, I shall pass on any news to you via this blog.
 The SSPCA does a grand job so if you have any pennies to spare you can donate here as they help all sorts of creatures in distress.

* Hoots Mon: Was in the pop charts in 1958 and you can download now for those of you who want to take a trip down Memory Lane

A Year in Review

.. Or, The A to Z of 2014

ANT & DEC: Best friends, soul mates and inseperable until

the fox intervened

A is for Ant, the last of the turkeys. Since he arrived in 2013 the ubiquitous Mr Fox has taken all of his companions including 8 Bourbon Red and 9 Norfolk Bronze turkeys. His soul mate Dec was snatched off a wall by a fox just last week and Ant is inconsolable. I now have to decide if it would be kinder to serve him on a plate or start looking around for new mates.

B is for Billy Goat and Rolo is absolutely magnificent and not yet fully grown. He's a British Primitive Goat which was once known as the Old English/Scottish/Welsh/Irish, British Landrace or Old British Goat. The breed descends from the first farmers in the Neolithic period and was moved around by Celts, marauding Vikings and Saxons. These goats are almost predator proof and are largely used these days for Conservation Grazing and scrub clearance.

C is for cat and I've got two types of felines on the farm - three feral who go about their work unseen but have reduced the rat population to virtually nil and are unsung heros and three pampered indoor cats who have eradicated - it seems - the mice population.

D is for dog and I've not yet got one because I'm in a bit of a dilemma at what breed to choose. Should I get a dog(s) it will defintely be an outdoors animal designed purely to ward off or attack foxes otherwise security is left to the geese who already do a cracking job. The problem is I can't have a dog(s) that might stray off into neighbouring farmland and end up being shot on sight by farmers who need to protect their sheep and lambs. Any advice please let me know.

E is for eggs and they're in very short supply at the moment, partly because it's winter and partly because my remaining five hens are still in a state of shock after more than 20 of their companions were slaughtered by a couple of foxes who broke in to their compound.

ROLO: British Primitive Goat & expectant

father of four in the Spring

F is for Frank my white pheasant. He's a lovely, friendly little chap who has survived two shooting seasons but alas he is lonely after his female partner disappeared earlier in the year. Despite that he's tried to mate with any white bird he sees which has caused consternation in the hen house and a bit of a flap with Philomenia my white peahen who defintely thinks he's punching above his weight.

JACK, master of all he surveys ... he's owned

the postman several times too!

G is for geese and they are the talk of the launderette in the Borders. Led by ferocious gander Jack, Vera and Bluebell have earned notoriety among the postmen, couriers and delivery men and women who come to our door ... and then run like hell after being ambushed by the geese. Better than any watchdog, that's for sure. Let's hope 2015 will see a successful breeding program between Jack and Vera the two Toulouse geese.

H are for hens and 2014 was a rollercoaster year for my rare breed Scots Dumpys. Having assembled some beautiful specimens from the Isle of Wight, Northampton, Cheshire, Manchester and Biggar a successful breeding programme got underway headed by cockerels Horatio and Napoleon. Their fame spread far and wide and they were used foir farmyard scenes in an American hit TV series focussing on 17th century Scotland called Outlander. Tragedy struck a few months back when atleast two foxes tunneled their way into the hen compound killing most of the occupants. Horatio survived but lost his cock-a-doodle-do and most of his neck feathers while the last four surviving females have not laid an egg for two months now.

HORATIO: In the good old days when

he could cock-a-doodle-do

I is for Insecta, the scientific classification for the common honeybee and at the moment I'm the proud owner of six colonies. While 2013 provided a bumper crop, last year was rather disappointing in honey terms but I'm hopeful this year the bees will really start doing the business ... if they survive the weather. One colony has already been destroyed thanks to 100mph gales which blew over the hive and scattered the occupants inside.

J is for the Jed Forest Hunt. In 2013 I told them to steer clear of my land but the following year went cap in hand and asked them for help with my fox problem. In the last year they and their supporters have reported 49 dead foxes ... and they still keep on coming. Who said country foxes are heading for the cities - the blighters continue to wreak havoc here in the Borders.

THUMBERLINA remain the

only white Scots Dumpy in the pen

K is for kak, a word I learned during a trip to Johannesburg in 2014 and it means simply: "Shit". And let's face it, since my herd of goats arrived I'm shovelling plenty of it these days as they are being stabled during the winter before I let them loose to munch there way through scrubland and generally tidy up the fields. And when I'm not cleaning up after the goats the geese keep me fully occupied - on average each one poops 30 times a day. There's certainly plenty of shit around the farm. 

HANGING around waiting for

night fall; one of the bats

L is for Laurasiatheria which is the scientific name for placental mammals originating from the northern supercontinent of Laurasia. It includes shrews, hedgehogs and bats which brings me on nicely (yes, I know a tad contrived) to bats and there's loads of the low-flying little fellas around here. I've not yet got that close up to any that I can identify with any degree of confidence.

M is for milk and hubby is hoping our pregnant nanny goats will be a great source to make butter and cheese from once they've had their kids in the spring. It seems the billy, Rolo, is quite the stud as all four of his nannies are now in the family way.

N is for noise and the chief reason why I invested in a dozen guinea fowl in the autumn of 2014. The little blighters maraud noisily around the farm and produce a frenzied feathered klaxon noise if something untoward comes in to their view ... ie the fox. 

O is for Owl and I'm seriously considering either offering a home to a rescue owl or buying a baby barn owl (with certificate) to rear. There's something very calming about owls ... watch this space.

ALBERT shows off his plumage in preparation for Spring '15

P is for peafowl and I'm really looking forward to seeing mine in full feather for 2015. I've two adult Indian peacocks King Ed and Albert, a pair of white peafowl Harry and Philomenia and four peahens so that Ed, Albert and Harry don't fall out. They're beautiful birds, very curious and on an evening they perch in the highest Scots Pine tree in the woods - very noisy but so enchanting.

Q is for Queen Bee and I'm hoping my ladies will survive the winter and continue to lead their honeybee colonies on to great things for 2015. They're all marked with a dot denoting the year of their birth and by my reckoning they should be firing on all six cylinders very soon.

RESOLUTION for 2015: To take part in the Return to the Ridings

R is for Return to the Ridings. The Borders are deeply entwined with the turbulent era of the Border Reivers who ruthlessly raided lands on either side of the Anglo-Scots border from the 13th to the 17 centuriues. I am determined to get a horse and join in the fun known as the Ridings. From Hawick, Selkirk, Jedburgh, Langholm and Lauder the festivities can carry on for two weeks and is part of the pageantry.

S is for Soho 2 Silo, this blog which is great fun to write as I share my (mis)adventures with you but to all of those who said I wouldn't last six weeks in the countryside after two decades in Soho, I think I've proved you wrong. Thanks to everyone who has given their feedback, please keep up your support, shared stories and nuggets of information - I need as much help as possible as many of you know.

TUBBY Bluebell became so obese 

she couldn't stand on her feet!

T is for Tubby and while most of the animals keep in trim Bluebell  rather disgraced herself. So much so towards the end of 2014 she had to go on a crash diet when she became too heavy to move. She was put on grass and water for a week until she was back on her feet again. Much to the annoyance of her two companions Jack and Vera they also had to share the same spartan diet.

UGLY? No way but noisy yes; one of the
Dirty Dozen.

U is for Ugly and I was a wee bit offended on behalf of my Guineau Fowl when a passerby said they were ugly birds! Of course I didn't buy the so-called 'Dirty Dozen' for their good looks but for their rowdy, hooligan-style behaviour and they've not let me down so far. They are probably the most unpopular birds with all the other animals because they make one hell of a racket, hunt in a group and attack anything that gets in their way - apart from Jack the Gander, of course.
They are super efficient as they go through the land hunting out bugs and slugs and will not stop for anything as they hunt in one large gang. What they might lack in looks they certainly make up for in energy and enthusiasm as they go about their business in their dark grey suits.

V is for Vets and the only animals that have needed medical attention so far are my indoor cats who require an annual flu injection and the occasional manicure! Although I am wondering if I should try and see if there's such a think as a Chicken Whisperer for my hens. They are still shook up after the fox invasion of their hen pen and it's now been a couple of months.

W is for White Doves and I've not had a good year with these little birds. The first lot succumbed to a nesting pair of Peregrine Falcons but undeterred I brought in another lot from a farm in Wolsingham. The latter escaped on the first day and flew back but undeterred I went and retrieved them holding them in an aviary for several weeks. Just the day before they were due for release a fox tunnelled under the frame and massacred all but one. The survivor, called Hope, now has five new mates - all fantails from Nottingham and they are pairing up just now.

LAST WORD: But not in 2015. I'm 

determined the year of the fox is over

X is often used to represent the unknown, if I remember my Algebra classes correctly and 2015 is a bit of an unknown for me. I'm not sure what new animals I will introduce this year - if any at all. Suggestions, as usual aew welcome.

PLOTTING an escape or planning a suicide - with sheep like

these two Zwartbles you just never know.

Y is for Yawn and I know I've bored you all rigid with stories and dramas of the foxes that have plagued my stock in 2014, but I'm hoping that 2015 will bring in a totally new era in which the fox does not feature.

Z is for a rare breed of sheep called Zwartbles and I kept two for a few months last year. Regular readers of this column will known I'm not a big fan of sheep; they're subversive animals with two missions: To die or to run away. However he-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is has a taste for sheep, especially mutton and so I will not be too surprised if I see more of the woolly demons make an appearance in the pastures some time this year.
 In the meantime, I wish you all the best for 2015 and hope you succeed in whatever you set out to do. Please keep the comments and suggestions coming. Have a great year.