Over dinner on Wednesday evening, Victor asked me in that quizzical way of his what that funny bird was that looked a bit like a baby chicken, that he had seen scurrying about in the Chookery for the past day or two. I gave my suitably perplexed look and uttered something like, 'Um I really don't know, Victor...I hope you haven't been messing with those mushrooms growing in the gardens.' Occasionally a crested pigeon manages to get inside but I was sure that Victor would have known what a pigeon looked like, and besides, pigeons don't really scurry about, instead preferring to fly like a maniac on speed into the sides of the Chookery in a panicky bid to find their way out.
So it was with much interest that I approached the Chookery on Thursday morning and began scouring the ground for signs of this avian interloper. And sure enough, scurrying about as Victor described was a buff-banded rail. Now I've written about these guys a couple of times and they are one of my favourite birds that we see quite regularly as they hurtle off the Rock Valley Road, neck low and outstretched, in a bid to out-run our vehicle as it bears down on them (they always escape I am pleased to add). And I have seen one or two in the Big Bush Garden. But I was very surprised that this one had made it's way over to the Chookery and even more surprised that it had managed to find it's way in. (And I still don't know how it did this).
I feared that the girls might decide to gang up on it and peck it to death and eat it (which they will do, dear readers), and besides the Chookery was no place for a self-respecting buff-banded rail to be hanging out, so I managed to corner it in the quarantine pen inside the Chookery and grab it. Much to it's annoyance - which it made quite clear to me with it's loud squarking. Which of course then set off our neurotic Japanese bantam (my little cock, as I'm prone to say), Terriyaki, whose catastrophising then set off the rest of the girls. Bedlam and panic in the Chookery.
Easing myself and the rail through the door, I then liberated the rail into the garden we have established under the pine trees next to the Chookery. And I mixed up some soluble valium for Terryaki and his girls and they settled down a treat. (just joking re: valium).
2 comments:
How fabulous.
so are you still into your birding, Louise?
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