Glorious!

Well, today is a real bonus, "they" forecast overcast with showers, but what do we have, sunny and warm!  Walked down to the wood, but all the action was happening on the outskirts... in one corner of the wood there is a little house, with a small "farmyard" containing dogs, chickens and various other voluble residents!

These are REALLY free range chickens... there seem to be as many cockerels as hens (obviously the owner makes no distinction  as to which chicks are allowed to grow up, lovely!) and so each cock has only one or two ladies, which he guards jealously from rivals!  They all strut about in and outside the fence, in the wood, along the lane, in just the way their universal antecedents must have done centuries ago, when they were jungle fowl!

Suddenly I heard a burst of tiny, high pitched "peeping" and there, with their Mum, were 7 tiny chicks, minute balls of fluff, in every colour from white, through cream and brown to black.  The hen bird was busily pecking away with Dad guarding his family!  In autumn, as in spring, nature provides!  It was a magical moment, and so unexpected!