More and more

They're bursting out all over.....

The day after the last lot, these appeared. Four black, one white and one fawn (hidden behind the black one on the left). I couldn't get closer because as soon the hen saw me, she'd run off. Even though I was making small friendly noises and gently spilling food around.

Next day I came home from moving stuff over to the new house and found a little black one dead near the gate. (I blame next door's cat. Mine was indoors.) It looked unharmed. And my neighbour, though sad like me, admits this does keep the population down a little. Both the new mothers aren't quite a year old themselves - these are the ones who were huddled in a sunny heap on my doorstep last summer. So if you do the maths, it won't be too long before the flock is more than one garden can support.

Since then, this black hen's managed to hold on to her remaining five. Which is good considering she repeatedly wanders into places the chicks can't follow. Like up the big stone steps. Or down off the wall. One of them couldn't even get out of a shallow tin bowl with some seeds in.

She is on the patio with three of them. Two are left on top of the stone wall three feet above her, cheeping madly in panic, and away she trots, oblivious. Muggins tries to catch the pair for her, but they run at a speed you wouldn't believe for such tiny legs. I'm trying to stop them half leaping half falling and breaking their legs. In the end I grasp them and away they run after mamma.

Next day all the chicks are together and the two hens obviously have a pecking order sorted out. Black hen keeps pecking brown hen's head. Remember who's boss around here. Sibling rivalry, I tell you. Brown hen doesn't fight back, just lowers her head and keeps eating.

Aerial view of doorstep and five to each hen - but which ??!1

But the chicks are all confused and when the two hens go separate ways there are three chicks left behind. Once again it's me trying to figure out what goes where.

It's becoming a habit, this Search and Rescue stuff. The dwarf bamboo is shrieking loudly. Three shriekers, at least. I can't actually get through it to catch them. I have to scare them to the far end and get the daft black hen to go that way too. It works. Eventually, she has the good sense to climb up a sloping stone bank to find the terrified cheepers, followed by her bewildered others.

It's such a consuming and wonderful thing, being a godmother. The new people taking over the house will have to get a full handover briefing. I'll have to tell you about their viewing of the house. At least they loved seeing the hens.


But wait till three in the morning.

Pitch dark. Nothing happening. Quiet night.

No reason for any disturbances. But without fail ...



"EVERYBODY ALRIGHT?"

"Yes boss we're fine."

"You lot over there next door, you alright?"

"Yeah we're fine. You?"

"We're great, alive and kicking. Bloody floodlight across the river woke us up."

"Huh. Same old excuse" mumbles grumpy hen. "I was fast asleep 'til you started bellowing."

She's right. This is always the cockerel excuse. It's a total fib. The floodlights across the river are usually on all night, steady as the moon, for reasons which will become clear after I've moved. Promise.

And oh dear God that's Foghorn Leghorn, the loudest of the lot. Absolutely deafening within twenty yards. Actually deafening through a brick wall. (He's another dumpee, originally living next door but thought mine looked a good billet. Neighbour was here one day and saw him through the kitchen door. "Bloody traitor!" she yelled.)

That's Geronimo now. He doesn't do the cock-a doodle-do thing. He yodels. With a croaky falling-off at the end. My mother said he had a sore throat. Didn't sound well at all.

Then two cockerels, for a long glorious minute, call repeatedly and simultaneously in a perfectly tuned counterpoint. (A major third, if you're wondering.) 
A beautiful progression, heard for this time, and this time only, in the whole history of chickens. One sound above the other, heaven to listen to, lying entranced in the dark.

Then I hear the youngest one. He's so proud to be grown-up enough to join in, still finding his voice.

There's the pure white one, famous for persistently trying to roost in the coal hole.

There go the twins, the ones with tiny heads and huge combs. I'm sorry, but they do look silly, and their current game is fighting to see who's today's winner. It changes.

Then - nothing. Silence.

They've gone back to sleep, until the dawn.