My hens' favourite food

Here is a small video clip of my hens eating their favourite food: banana.



This clip was taken in December 2013. Hazel, the ginger hen (on the right) is dead now. She was killed by a fox a few weeks ago.
It is funny how they wipe their beak on the ground after eating.

Pheasants in the garden

As we are surrounded by fields, pheasants will often come to our garden to pick fallen seeds from our bird feeder. Look at this male pheasant below waiting patiently and looking up in the air!

Do you know what this pheasant is looking at?

It is actually waiting for small birds to come to the bird feeder and drop seeds on the floor. Nuthatches, and to a lesser extend blue tits and great tits, are very messy eaters and will pick through the seeds to get to their their favourite ones dropping a lot of food on the floor in the process. This is a great opportunity for ground feeders and larger birds who could not otherwise reach the bird feeder to get their share.

Hens don't like to share - part 2

Here are a couple more pictures. You can see how big the frog is. So big in fact that my hen could not eat it.... What a waste!

Hens don't like to share - Part 1

Another of my hens caught a rather large frog last summer. It was funny to see the other hens run after her around the garden trying to steal the frog from her but they failed... She certainly did not want to share the frog!

Hens love frogs

One of my hens caught a small frog last summer. Her instinct was to peck the head for a quick kill. She then spent a long time pecking the rest of the frog's body. I guess she was trying to break the bones into smaller pieces? As soon she saw the other hens coming towards her, she ran away as she did not intend to share her catch with anybody else. Then, she finally gobbled it up. You can see in the clip below what she does at the end. Funny, obviously, they don't have napkins like we do.

Myxomatosis in young wild rabbits

We saw a litter of 5 very cute wild rabbits being decimated by myxomatosis. Within one month of them being old enough to leave the nest, their eyes started to swell and the rabbits eventually lost their sight. All we could do was watch... We found a couple of dead bodies in the garden the other three just disappeared. None of the five reached adulthood. The video clip below shows how the illness progressed. Don't look if you think you might not like it.

"Dinosaur" attack - Optical illusion

This pheasant looks like it is running after a small bird (a Dunnock). In fact, this is just an optical illusion. They are both minding their own business looking for seeds.