Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Tuesday 8th June 2010 - weather: short sharp downpours, followed by sunshine, then more rain!

QUAIL DIARY
All is well with the gals. Sex is still the most important things in their lives, followed by eating, and finally, laying eggs. 9 yesterday!! Today my parcel from live food direct arrived containing 100 locust - for the lizard, a pack of 50 giant live mealworms - for the lizard and oscars and 3 packs of dried mealworms as they had them on special - these for the gals as they love them. However, after reading how Wallfishwife has been feeding her girlies woodlice, I wondered if mine would like a live mealworm or 2. Now these are big wigglies, probably 10 times the size of the little freeze dried mealworms, and they put up quite a fight. To be honest, they make me shudder and I can only pick them up using proper bug tweasers. What a whimp. So, I sat myself on their wooden house, a place that has become a convenient seat to watch the ladies at play, and I waited until they settled and came to see me. Bobble and the Big One - the 2 white boys came out first and I gave them both a wiggly. What a giggle. Peck, peck peck, grab, peck, chase. Bless them. At first, I don't think they really knew quite what to do with them, but animal, or rather, bird instinct soon took over, and wham, swallowed whole and then they were begging for more. Of course, the other birdies were all paying close attention to this spectacle, and before I knew it, I had all 11 clucking around me, dare I say flirting with me to get their beaks on a squidgy, tasty, plump mealworm. I sat with them for a while, tossing them the mealworms and watching battle commence. The older gals were very cheeky and would wait in the wings until the other birds had knocked 10 bells out of the worms, then they would saunter in and steal the mealworm, only to swallow it whole. A few tustles broke out, only to be expected and I decided before blood was shed, so sprinkle a few dry ones around, and leave them in peace. What fun. I will now endevour to find catterpillars and other critters for the gals. I should imagine the cabbage white will have smothered my brassicas on the allotment in eggs, as they do annually, so rather than squidge said catterpillars, I will harvest them for my ladies.
Egg count: 171
p.s. or is it an n.b.? Anyhow, this afternoon, as the rain stopped work today, I sowed a tray of bright light chard and mix colour pak choi for planting out as the spuds come out. I often do a very late planting as they don't tend to bolt and stand well over the winter. I also sowed some seed on Saturday when we got home from the plot - more runners, peas, florence fennel, spring onions, french beans, courgettes and cucumbers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ooh, I bought mine some red worms from the fishing tackle shop yesterday - it took the birds ages to knock them back, just as you describe!