TWO WEEKS OLD

The chicks are two weeks old their eyes are open and they are stretching
their wings. It's not all been good news in the box there has been a
couple of deaths, mums tried to remove the bodies but has failed
and you can see them lying in the bottom right hand corner.

EATING, SLEEPING, POOING.

They're a week old now, eyes are still shut the feathers are starting to
grow on their wings and just check out the poo removal!

AAARRRHHHHHH....check their eyebrows

SWARM
To keep you up to date on the bee front, a lot has happened this week.
Last Monday I came home and my bees had swarmed. I'd planned to do an artificial swarm but they beat me to it and had decided to hang out in the holly tree.

With rookie beekeeper crew; Lin, Sarah & Leo we managed to get them into a nuc. Having never collected a swarm before it didn't go completely to plan but we finally got them to the allotment apiary site at 10pm that evening.

As you can see they seemed happy on Tuesday but by Thursday had decided to move out. Who knows where they are, though there has been a reported swarm in the Erdington area

THEY'VE HATCHED!

What a lovely surprise yesterday morning some of the chicks had hatched.
Take a look at this.

EGGS ELEVEN



The final total for eggs laid was eleven the final egg being laid on 20th of April. For the past 11 days she's been sitting on them popping out for the occasional bite to eat.

FOUR EGGS




It's Tuesday and we have four eggs, that's one a day since Saturday.
She lays one every morning then spends all day out and about returning between 7.30-8pm fussing around the eggs then sleeping on top of them. There can be anything up to 15 eggs per breeding pair. The average amount of eggs however, tends to be 7-8 per nest. Once she's finished laying she'll pluck the feathers from her belly to create a brood spot she'll incubate the eggs alone.

THERE'S AN EGG!
Yesterday Polly laid her first egg...how exciting

IT TAKES TWO

The lady's (Sarah's named her Polly) husband was seen in the box today (Sarah's named him Angus)

SUNDAY ROOST
We came home this evening and she's spending her first night in the box.
Funny thing is all that soft moss and she's sitting on the hard wooden floor

SUNDAY IN THE NEST BOX
More moss and more waggle dancing.

NEST BUILDING SATURDAY 27th MARCH
Today was a busy day for our Blue Tit she was in and out of the box all day.

Early in the day she bought in dry grass followed by huge amounts of moss.
Each delivery came with a celebratory waggle dance.

MORE TIT ACTION!

Yesterday was a good day on the tit front.
Lady tit bought in some bits of dried grass.

LOOK AT THIS TIT
We've had visitors in our new video bird box...check this out.
The female has been having a tidy up, how exciting.
Hopefully there will be more to follow.

CROCUS POLLEN.

It's been 10 months since my last posting.
I'm back!
In a nut shell.....got my bees.
This week the bees have been real busy, sun on the hive coming and going legs full of pollen. Tuesday morning they're on the crocuses in the front garden I made myself late for a job by getting distracted with my macro lens.

INTRODUCING THE LADIES

As I have introduced the two new ladies it's time you met the older ladies:
BERYL:
Beryl & Daisy where our first chickens we got them at 2 weeks old from Allenscroft Primary School.
They are Hy Line hens and were destined for a life as battery hens had not Kerry the school secretary persuaded us that we must have chickens.
Beryl is definitely the boss.
She knows when we're eating toast and will come to the patio doors and stare at you.
DAISY:

Daisy is the most affectionate chicken, she likes being cuddled and has a soft spot for Jack. Here they are taking 40 winks together. Aaaaarrrrrrhhh cute.
We recently noticed that Daisy is very short sighted and can only really see out of her left eye. Chicken specs are needed can anyone help?






DOTTIE:

Dottie was the first of our Cream Legbars, she's a slightly sickly chicken, quite small, shy and lays an egg every two weeks! You know it's her egg as it's very tiny.




ETHEL:
Ethel is also a Legbar she is a lot bigger than Dottie and has the floppiest comb which almost completely covers her left eye.






Cream Legbars lay lovely blue eggs. Here's the first one Ethel layed next to a brown one of Berly's

BLACK ROCK CHICKS.

Last Saturday I decided to go get two new chickens. Here they are all snug in the pet carrier on the way home.








I got them from Oak Meadow Farm check out the website if you're looking for chickens, ducks, geese, quails or pigeons: http://www.oakmeadowfarm.co.uk/forsale.htm

We've named them, Tina Turner & Grace Jones.....black rock chicks...get it?

Grace is the darker of the two, has black legs. She's the quite one.








Tina has more brown feathers on her chest and white legs. She managed to escape from her temporary coop on the second night turning up at 6am the next morning. Tina is very fast & very confident.

EASTER CAMPING

We decided to ignore the bad weather forecast and get Millie on the road for our the first camping trip of the year. Glad we did as you can see from the photos.....no rain!

We headed for Dyfi Valley in Wales. Oscar and Woody love Ynyslas beach, it's perfect for frisbee there's so much space for chasing each other and when your feet get too hot there's so much water just to stand in and cool down.


The first night we stayed at a campsite in Borth next to Borths very own AnimalArium, with a beautiful view of a leopard pacing up and down in a very small cage and a dawn chorus which included a Kookaburra & Peacock . Don't think we'll stay there again no campfires and dogs to be kept on leads. Wasn't all bad it was a lovely sunny evening and we used the Cobb Oven for the very first time: http://cobb-bbq.co.uk/index.asp If you want some gourmet camping cooking it's a must have.
Check out this meal, Shropshire lamb chops and the very best purple sprouting broccoli courtesy of our neighbours Ken & Rhoda. All washed down with cans of Firsty Ferret and Ginger Beer.

Next day we enjoyed a morning walk and breakfast of bacon and (No. 69) eggs on the beach.

We then moved on to one of our favourite campsites just outside Machynlleth close to The Centre for Alternative Technology, next to the River Dyfi - campfires allowed and dogs can roam free!

Le family Chilton joined us that afternoon for a full Sunday roast cooked on the Cobb: Pork loin, with broccoli, baked potatoes, carrots and gravy for five quite some feat that! Looking forward to the next trip and planning the meals right now.

SURPRISE SURPRISE

The asparagus are starting to show themselves, what a lovely surprise.

RAISED BEDS

We finally got six raised beds in at the allotment today. Made out of old scaffolding boards they're looking good! Just got to fill them with some top quality compost.