Okay, I knew the eggs were there but I thought they’d been abandoned. I didn’t know whose eggs they were until today! Guinneafowl eggs – I so hope it works and chicks are going to be a result of all this mother’s hard work….
This is exciting because, as you know, Tapper the duck, is also doing the nesting thing.
I watch and wait!
I hesitate to speak too soon, but it looks like my patience has paid off and familiarity has bred harmony rather than contempt when it comes to interactions between our dogs and our birds.
This morning we let the dogs out of their yard and kept the gang in theirs (we usually do the opposite). I sat outside and kept watch because even though the geese, ducks and emus were safely in their own yards, all of the other birds were out and about because they can fly. So the peafowl, guinnea fowl, turkeys, chooks and pheasant, were all roaming around freely and seemingly unafraid of the dogs who they usually only see through a fence. I was particularly worried about the chooks but so far so good and I’ve been able to come inside.
Here is Jack, the Irish Terrier, with the Bubbles and Baby Turkey. Now Jack, who is less than a year old, has never exhibited any ferocious hunting tendencies anyway, but he does like to chase things. In this sense, he and Baby Turkey have a lot in common so you could say they have both met their match and the chasing has stopped.
Interestingly, Doc and Blaze (our father and son miniature dachschunds) are so busy fighting each other at the moment that neither has attempted to hunt down any of the birds. I’m not sure what is going on with those two but lately they never stop arguing and last night Doc gave Blaze a nasty bite on the ear when Son was feeding them. Doc is very jealous when it comes to our attention so poor Blaze has to constantly defer to his father and stand back.
Another harmony challenge has been the introduction of a new gander to the gang. He was delivered to us by a neighbour the other day because he had lost his mate and was very lonely. The poor guy is quite scared of Godfrey’s gang and yesterday, when Son and I got back from Perth, we found him all alone by the gate and had to ‘herd’ him back to the gang and put them all in the same pen. We are calling him Leroy and hoping that with enough time in the yard with the others, he will eventually make a friend and be okay. Son says it reminds him of being ‘the new kid’ at school. The following photo is not a good one but it does show this new kid’s challenge. Leroy is on the right, Seli is on the left and Godfrey is in the background (as always!) Sometimes redeye isn’t a bad effect!
In a couple of hours I pick Husband up for the weekend so I better go and hose down the area outside the back door which all our birds seem to think is the toilet – arghh!
After several days of Tapper’s elusive behaviour, I thought she must have gone off with one of the wild ducks and was, perhaps, sitting on eggs somewhere in one of the paddocks. I searched everywhere to no avail and then, all of a sudden, she would turn up and have a swim in the pond, then disappear again. It was all becoming too mysterious and I was beginning to feel sad that we’d lost yet another bird….
Then, late this afternoon, after putting the gang away into their yard, I decided to go in with them, defy Godfrey (that took a bit of doing!) and sit in there on a tree stump while I waited for the hose to fill their yard pond. All of the gang, except Godfrey, came and nuzzled me for bread, which I always have in my pocket, and I had my camera ready just in case any of them did anything extraordinary.
Once the bread was gone, they quickly lost interest in me and went to the pond, so I was about to get up off the tree stump to go inside and cook dinner when I had a quick look inside the little chookhouse in that yard … and that’s what the picture is of – Tapper on her eggs!
Tapper (the duck who all the other ducks and geese adore and want to ‘marry’) keeps disappearing and then – as I mentioned in the previous post – mysteriously reappearing. I never see her anymore during the day but she always comes back at dusk. She waits until all of the gang are yarded and then she takes to the little pond like a duck to water (sorry I couldn’t help saying that!)
I can’t lock Tapper in the yard any longer because she flies out straight away. Well, that’s what I thought until I saw her actually climb out the other evening. She uses her wings for liftoff, but it is her massive webbed feet that get her over the fence. It’s like watching gravity reversed and very funny. So far she has been too quick for me to get a photo. I certainly didn’t know ducks could climb – but maybe she is just multi-talented!
Anyway, one of the Bubbles has lately taken to watching out for her. After all, they were raised in the same box in the kitchen so they’re a bit like siblings. The Bubble pictured below seems most concerned not to let Tapper wander off again but the trouble is Tapper is getting really sick of this. I will let the pictures tell the story:
I don’t really want to a blog about blogging, when I want to blog about other stuff, however there are certain things about the way WordPress works which may need attention. I’m not complaining, just responding to the problems I feel need to be ‘fixed’. I will try to outline my suggestions as entertainingly as possible.
I hope this doesn’t sound too cynical or rebellious; WordPress is awesome!
I’m ducking for cover now – hehe!
I have always loved the elusive notion of metaphor, and the way it dances and flits from one meaning to another, evading capture.
Okay, back down to ground level….
Unlike Woodroffe (always very grubby), our other Sebastopol goose, Diamond, keeps her multitude of feathers very clean. This is her, wondering if she should venture into a bath already used by Woody, Zaruma and the other members of ‘the gang’. I can definitely understand her reticence!
She’s pretty good at the navel-gazing thing too!
Angelina: How come she never uses us as metaphors? It’s always those filthy geese and ducks!
Brad: Angie, she does use us as metaphors – all the time!
Angelina: Yes but she gives them all the good cabbage and gives us the leftovers. I don’t get that!
Brad: Calm down, Angie – you are my own personal metaphor and always will be.
Angelina: Oh, really? Of what?
Brad: Of beauty, Angie, of beauty. Okay, now which branch do you want tonight – let’s have a snuggle.
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I have always loved the elusive notion of metaphor, and the way it dances and flits from one meaning to another, evading capture.
Tapper gravitates between the turkeys she was brought up with, the drakes and ganders who find her attractive, and lots and lots of alone time. She went missing over the last two days and I was worried but then, as I was putting the gang away tonight, she reappeared and flew willingly into a yard full of amorously- confused geese and one lone drake (Zaruma). Mmmm.
In case you haven’t noticed, I am a bit of a novice when it comes to the sexual antics of poultry and other birds and what I witnessed yesterday afternoon was a little disturbing to say the least. Zaruma started it, then Godfrey tried to fight Zaruma off then the shy Seli tried too. I was gobsmacked watching this and was on-the-ready to rescue Tapper, but she didn’t seem to mind, whereas I felt like I was watching one of those disturbing rite-of-passage movies.
Until 18 months ago I was a university lecturer living on a farm; now I am, as Husband puts it, with a twinkle in his eye, a farm girl – ha! As for Son, it’s probably best not to share his current definition of me (another ‘ha’).
I guess I just want things to go back in time – just a little bit.
The geese and ducks like to have a bath before bedtime. Godfrey usually supervises.That’s him at the back.
The two turkeys we call ‘the Bubbles’ never participate. That’s one on the left, walking away.
Even if the turkeys were interested, Godfrey hisses them away. He has a very powerful hiss which he accompanies with an angry trumpet noise.
The peacocks aren’t interested in bathing either. They think the ducks and geese are weird! Angelina, in particular, is rather disdainful of their antics.
I can see Angelina’s point of view – Ola, Pearl and Tapper like to play leapfrog in the bath.
Everyone waits their turn.
Well, except for Tapper who is always the last to get out of the bath and go to bed. That’s her at the forefront.
Pearl and Diamond aren’t that keen on leaving the bath either.
Woodroffe, however, willingly goes to bed because he loves his bedtime snack of lettuce scraps.
Zaruma’s favourite bedtime snack is bread, so he also willingly goes to bed.
Eventually, Godfrey and I get them into their yard for the night. Once they are in, Godfrey usually turns around a gives me a goodnight kiss (a sharp nip to the ankle) if I don’t leave the yard quickly enough!
Ahhh – the bedtime ritual!
Angelina: What are these things?
Phoenix 1: I’m not sure, but they look rather delicious.
Queenie: They’re chicken eggs, you morons. Well, I think they are … they dropped out of the woman’s bag of cabbage. Don’t touch them – they could be from the shop!
Tapper: How do you know they’re not duck eggs?
Remember this song? If you aren’t old enough to remember it (hehe!) it’s worth a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1F5BLLFAeM
Here is our male Indian Runner duck following his girlfriend. When these ducks run, they look exactly like Basil from Fawlty Towers! I have never named these two because originally we had several until we realised we had a fox problem, so I just call our remaining couple “Duckies”. The male is the one I rescued from the fox that awful morning after the massacre of several poultry. I ran outside, in response to terrible squawking, to find the fox with its jaws around this duck’s neck. Ever since then, he hasn’t been able to quack normally. On the upside, he is very good at sex and never leaves his girlfriend alone; not only that, he tries it on with all the geese and, just recently, with little Tapper.
And here is Zaruma who, as of yesterday, proved his manhood by getting it together with Tapper.
I didn’t even realise Tapper was a girl until I witnessed both the Indian runner and Zaruma eyeing her off (I reckon that this is a gentler way of describing what really happens – hell! Unlike chooks, ducks kind of take awhile.)
So Tapper is now in great demand and has become a terrible flirt! She can’t seem to decide between the Indian Runner and Zaruma.
The funniest thing is that, while I always look away tactfully, whenever ‘it’ happens, the geese go crazy-loud like some sort of cheering squad. I do not approve!
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In a different way, I feel torn between the two people I love most in the world, Husband and Son. With Husband 20 kms south of the farm in the nursing lodge and Son 200 kms north in the hospital, Son is taking priority at the moment and I’m heading back up to Perth to see him soon. Yesterday I spent the afternoon with Husband and he and Son had their first phone conversation since Son’s surgery. I had to enable this because, although Husband can answer his phone, he’s not so good at ringing, and Son is too incapacitated at the moment to answer his phone – argh. Anyway when I finally got them phone-connected, one of the things Son said to Husband was “Now I really know how you feel, Dad.”
Here is a picture of them shaking hands a few days before Son’s surgery. We were at my brother’s place just down the road from the nursing lodge. It seems like a hundred years ago now!
jmgoyder 