Home and Dry!

I am thrilled to say that the homing process has worked. From day one the Doos were returning home at dusk and settling back onto the cote. Lily still goes straight into the nest hole and remains there while the other three prefer to sit on the wooden homing run surround. This is going to be removed today but Herb is going to put up another perching area for them as they seem to like to perch.

During the day they spend most of the time just sitting about on the roof of the house, they should really be called Doo Nothings not Doos! More accurately I should say they spend their time in the roof guttering as can be seen in the picture. They venture to the ground now and again and enjoy foraging with the wood pigeons and collared doves who have discovered rich pickings around the base of the dove cote.

It really is lovely to watch them, I had real worries that this was not all going to work but at last I have my white doves dotted around the place, they are relaxing and beautiful to look at and all the worry has been worth it.

A couple of days ago Sam and I were amazed to see Huffy and Hindoo, strutting around, bowing and necking like the amorous wood pigeons, hopefully this is a good sign that we have at least one pair for breeding though knowing my luck they could be gay! They should not mature until around 6 to 10 months so watch this space.

This week we have had guests from Germany, America, Canada and New Zealand via Turkey. They all loved the livestock and I have even been almost persuaded that I should have some ducks around the place. We had ducks here 20 years ago and they were no bother so may well consider that, If we get some they are already named as Heinz and Barb in honour of our recent visitors!

Last week my new wooden hen house arrived, Sam built it and the girls love it, so much more space for them. I am hoping to sell the Eglu to retrospectively finance the new upgraded living quarters. There is enough room in the new house for four more birds and I am toying with getting a few more pretty hens to add to the family. I quite fancy the sort that lay the blue eggs so will be looking out for some Auraucanas for sale. Either that or a couple of Black Rock hens that are reputed to 'dreep eggs' according to Wully Duncan.

The veg plot continues to grow and still not a blemish or a slug on the brassicas, we have harvested the first of the calabrese and it was delicious, the courgettes are also ready and the Italian Mixed Lettuce leaves are delicious.

Today is a lovely sunny day and after the hectic time we have had all week with visitors plan to sit in the summer house and do little or nothing at all, just like the doos do.

The Eagles Have Landed

Just a quick update. The doves spent a lot of yesterday sitting in trees or on the roof but eventually after a few practise flights they seemed to get the hang of this flying lark and were even able to land quite well. By yesterday evening all had returned to the dove cote where they stayed until after breakfast this morning and today has been a mixture of formation flying or sitting around the chimney stack looking bored. I have to admit I have breathed a huge sigh of relief, after the earlier disaster I had visions of letting them out and then never seeing them again, but not so.

FREEDOM!!

Hopefully not too much freedom. At last release day arrived, we had delayed it by a day due to the impending noise from two simultaneous Moonzie Do's, however the Midsummer Monsoon put paid to one and drenched the other into a tactical withdrawal into the byre. After having six dry weeks it was sods law that the heavens should open on the night of the longest day and the day we had decided to celebrate the Summer Solstice.

We have just been away on holiday for a week on the West Coast where the weather was also in the main dry and sunny and it gave Herb a good chance to get out on the boat with old mates and me to get a paintbrush into my hand and do some serious ( ly bad ) painting. We got back to a garden in which everything had grown huge. It looks like I am going to have at least a thousand tomatoes and a similar number of courgettes! The brassicas are looking even more amazing an still not a slug, cabbage white or thrip in sight.

Anyway back to Doo Release Day. In an operation planned with some precision, we carefully loosened the netting and once the doves were settled again slowly lifted it off the cote. We had been advised to release one dove at a time but this was impossible due to our set up but in the end they did that themselves as some were a little reluctant to leave the safety of what had been home for 7 weeks.

The first to leave was Bully , followed by Hindoo. They both made ever widening circles over the house and garden and Bully is now sitting in a large tree about 200 yards from home. Hindoo flew to the power lines and stayed another for half an hour but has now flown off someplace else. Huffy flew out and off and has not been seen since! Lily took a long time to pluck up the courage to leave and was alone in the cote for about half an hour, she eventually ventured to the finial on top of the cote and sat and posed while Sam took some nice pictures. She then flew to the roof and after a couple of aborted landing approaches is still there now.

I have every confidence that they will all be back for tea. I have counted them out and fully intend to count them back in again. Did I mention my middle name is Optimist?

My Magnificent Brassicas

We are at last over the hump and on the run down to Doo Release day, there has been an awful lot of flapping, hovering and wing stretching and I think the Clan are now ready to fly for real. There is going to be a slight delay on release day as the planned day coincides with a party next door for a whole years worth of excitable St Leonards girls ( think Scottish St Trinians!) plus a band for the night. We have also decided to hold our Summer Solstice Barbecue on the same night to benefit from the music gently wafting in our direction, hopefully we will be able to call it that!

We could have hosted Springwatch here this year. Each evening we have been privy to watching the ablutions and evening antics of Harey Potter plus his mate Harey Mary. They arrive around 8pm and usually stay for at least an hour. Young Potter is quite large and is completely at ease with the situation. He cleans himself assiduously, not missing one area including licking between his toes!

The Blue Tits in the box have fledged, I went to Dundee on Friday when I returned , found they had left, at least the seeds in the seed container don't go in a day anymore. It was comical to see them flying directly from the nest box to the seeds and back again. There would be frantic activity for a couple of hours and then a lull before it all took off again. We had a curious starling trying to get into the box one day but the intervention of a fist on the window shooed it away. Not very Springwatch I know,but having lost one batch of babies I was not prepared to sit and see another brood go the same way.

One of the Robins nesting in the barn died, we found it on the barn floor , no apparent injuries. Luckily for us Robins are fed by both parents and it was reassuring to see the other Robin in the barn feeding the babies, who are in an inaccessible hole in the barn wall.

The Swallows are still on the eggs in the barn, getting quite vocal when we go in and out. Last year they raised two clutches so we are hoping for the same again this year. We do seem to have far fewer swallows, as in previous years we would have at least 3 pairs in the barn.

The doves have started to coo, it sounds more like a burble through a glass of water at present but I think it shows how settled they are. I am still talking to them as often as I can and was lucky recently when Mum , Eric and Mary were here as they do did their bit at the socialising of the Clan.

The new veg garden is coming on a treat and we recently feasted on magnificent Ice Candle White Radishes and a mixed leaf salad, Rocket, Radicchio and Misticanza Leaves with egg mayonnaise all from my own plot. I was recently compliments on the quality of my Brassicas, hence the snap at the top of the blog. Not a Cabbage White in sight. This eating free from the land is great fun and I am looking to expand my menagerie. I am fairly keen to get a pig now but some people in the household are not so sure. The chickens are all laying although we still have one hen not pulling her weight, yesterday an egg was laid without a yoke. I have had to resort to shutting the hens in at night as with it getting light by 4am they seem to think that this is an acceptable time to get up and cluck, very loudly, for breakfast. It has not gone down too well and as an emergency measure Poppy and Daisy go into the temporary house alone otherwise there are some almighty squabbles in the night.

So now we are the countdown to the day the White Doves fly free, my friend Rosemary has a son Guy, getting married that day so we are going to make it a symbolic release for the wedding, the fact that the wedding is in the Deep South and we are in the Far North matters not a jot. It's the thought that counts and I will send her the video!

I have been looking at the history of Homing pigeons and came across this little article:

Homing Pigeons

Homing pigeons owe their name to the ability to return home from distant, unfamiliar release points in some cases, even if they've been transported, anaesthetised and deprived of all information about the journey. They were used to carry messages in both ancient Greece and China, and by the 16th century were being used in formal postal services. In 1860, Paul Reuter employed a fleet of 45 to deliver news and stock prices between Brussels and Aachen. Only in 2002 did India's police force retire its pigeon messenger service, when it was made redundant by e-mail. Homing pigeons have proved especially useful during times of war. One bird, "Cher Ami", was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for his heroic service during the First World War in delivering 12 important messages, despite sustaining a bullet wound. Equally amazing, but for different reasons, is the unfortunate bird that set off from Pembrokeshire in June 1953. It returned, dead, in a box postmarked "Brazil", 11 years later.

Three Weeks Four Days

The Doos have now been in residence for almost four weeks, they have been madly flapping their wings and having a go at impersonating Harrier Jump Jets. Apparently all this is in preparation for the time that they will be flying, nearly there, release date is set to be June 20th so fingers crossed that they fly free but come home for tea. I am hoping to make a video of the liberation. As you can see from the picture the weather has been really great and Grandma and I have been making the most of it. Hardly any rain so the raised beds have been getting hosed but everything is growing really well.



Have had a lot of visitors this week so the doos have been getting used to lots of new faces and voices, we talk to them every time we pass the fortress to get them used to us so that they will in time become hand tame. Mary and Eric were particularly fine at cooing or maybe it was just Mary trying to talk after sampling yet another bottle of Rose/Red/White wine.



There has been some funny business in the cote this week. A fair bit of pecking and bullying with at least some blood being drawn. This sorting out of the pecking order is not a pretty sight but we weathered it with the chickens so am sure we will again with the doos. We have also had some very amorous going on and for ten week old babies it seems a little precocious! However I guess in human years they must equate to being about ten so perhaps they are dooing OK. Not that I would throw my ten year old out of a window in a few weeks time and expect it to come back again.



Thought that we had lost Poppy Hen again the other day as she started making some very odd noises and the bare bit on her neck looked sore and inflamed. Herb was poised to do the deed and send her to the great hen coop in the sky but she must have heard us and decided to get better. However it has settled down again and she seems happy, amazing what Savlon and Tea Tree Oil can do for a Sick Chick.



No more news for now, off to look at the latest blood bath in the OK Corrall.

Two weeks down, four to go!

The new birds have been with us now for over two weeks, they are getting used to life in the cage, it is not ideal but then it is not for ever. This week I provided them with a splash pool by managing to get a shallow bath of water into the run, they love it when it is warm and splash around and then lay about on the grass dripping dry. I have tried to photograph them in the pool but they are having none of it, preferring to bathe in private. It is also quite difficult getting shots of them, not at them but Hindoo posed nicely this afternoon and here it is.

All the birds are enjoying the fine dry weather, the chickens have been making good use of the Chicken Spa and its use seems to be dominated by the Two Veras. Now I have opened up the newly seeded area of the run the chickens are having a great time and laying some enormous eggs. The Veras and Daisy have taken to roosting on top of the Eglu run at night and at dusk I had been shooing them back in to the Eglu but as soon as I was in the house they were on the roof again so I have decided to leave them to it.

My newly built raised beds are fairly blossoming, everything is coming along well, I think all the purloined chicken manure that we spread into the bases have done them a world of good. I just hope someone likes Jerusalem Artichokes after all this for they are growing bigger and faster than anything else.

Herb is busy building us ( me) a fire pit down by the stream, it is a bit like a mini Stonehenge . It is going to be multi purpose it that we can cook on it Jamie Oliver style and then have a roaring fire in it afterwards. It is going to be great. Nice to see him getting good use of his shiny yellow cement mixer.

Next job for me is to think of a next job for Herb!

Moonzie renamed the Killing Fields

The Doos are fine, However the baby Blue Tits appear to have been eaten by an unknown assailant. Got back from shopping to find the above remains on the path outside the lounge window. I have no idea what has had them, they were in the nest and being fed by the parents yesterday. Whatever it was it did not like feet or wings.

On a brighter note I was sitting by the stream in the sunshine yesterday and I caught a glimpse of a Kingfisher as it whizzed by, bright turquoise and orange, it is a lovely sight, but all too rare.

The new Doo Clan have settled in very well and fly to the ground on occasion to sun themselves and to peck at the grit and seeds that have fallen to the ground. They have lasted a week and a day and still no sign of the dog in the garden again. Only five more weeks in captivity.

Saw a strange sight two days ago, I heard the normal Buzzard noise and looked out to see at least a dozen circling high over head, we have often seen four or five but this was amazing.

Yesterday we had the Robin in the kitchen feeding from crumbs on the table and later in the day discovered it must have had a quick look around the house too as was evident by stragically placed droppings on the bannisters.

We found the dead swallow in amongst the logs on the wood pile. So sad after it getting back all the way from Africa to come and die at Moonzie.