Journal

Baby chicks

June has been hot. Properly hot.

Heat here means broody bantams - where the temperature rise makes me want to sit in the shade with a book and a ginger beer - the hens are drawn to fluff themselves up and sit on top of a great pile of eggs somewhere inaccessible.

The savviest know to hide themselves deep inside a bramble patch. Safe from foxes and badgers, hidden from me and my egg collecting.

I knew that Francine was brooding somewhere and I was listening out for the cheep, cheep, cheep of chicks. Then on Friday lunchtime I saw them - eleven tiny fluffy babies, milling around in the daisies with a puffed up shuttlecock of a Mum. Eleven!

This video is a montage of their first couple of days - learning to fly, keeping close to Mum.