Cute interlude

On Friday night, a neighbour turned up with a very young pheasant chick that had been brought in by their cat.

While considering the option of knocking it over the head and putting it out of its misery, we made the mistake of looking into its eyes. Minutes later I was grubbing around in the garden for tiny earthworms and we had made a cosy nest for it in the airing cupboard.

Although apparently too young to know how to feed itself, we managed to get food down its throat by waiting until it opened its mouth to cheep and then stuffing the worms in with tweezers.

When we opened the airing cupboard the next day it was fine, and our neighbours took the bird to the accommodating folk at Middle Farm. There it was been introduced to a broody hen with a couple of chicken chicks – and when we visited it today it was happily darting in and out from under her feathery skirts.

It will be interesting to see how it gets on, and at what point (if any) it realises that it’s not a chicken.