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.
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