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.