The last of the few

Absolutely no disrespect intended (regarding the date) but my small free-range poultry flock has been at the sharp-toothed end of an unremitting assault by foxes over the past few weeks and days. Sickened by finding birds dead, dying or disappeared, I resolved yesterday to find the last few a safer home.

The remaining ducks, Cheryl and Punky, went this morning to live at a nearby smallholding where they will benefit from a wire enclosure albeit without a pond. These two surviving hens, Emma and Griselda, have been confined all day until they find sanctuary tomorrow with neighbours down the lane. They will no longer be able to range free but they will, I hope, receive some measure of protection by being penned in.

When they go I will be without poultry for the first time in seven years. Just as shellfish removed far from the sea mysteriously continue to respond to the tidal rhythm of their native shores, so, I suspect, will I persist in monitoring the light levels towards sunset as 'putting away time' approaches. Maybe in the spring I will start a new flock but now I'm sad about losing these two. The place will seem very empty without them.