straw man

The hens are so fond of the sheep that quite some time ago at least two birds had begun laying in the sheep shed instead of the nesting boxes in the hen house. Then crows got wise to this practise and began to steal the eggs. What to do??

This blip gave me the prompt I needed and since we are having something of a wardrobe cull it seemed like a good idea to try making my first ever rudimentary scarecrow. To be honest with you I was too tired to put in a vast amount of effort. I don't know how lifelike a scarecrow has to be to convince a crow. I mean I presume they must be effective to some degree otherwise the practise would surely have died out wouldn't it?

We decided to hang it up rather than fix it to the ground, firstly that's a whole lot easier and hopefully it might swing a bit in the breeze and be that bit more lifelike. We hung it up beside the entrance to the sheep shed and I stepped back to take its portrait. The sheep were upon it in an instant! A new family member! They enjoy nibbling at our clothing and here was a whole new outfit to nibble!

Here are 'Bretta on the left and Vespa on the right looking rather alarmed because they have been asked to leave it alone. I have many shots of them fooling with it but none showing both their faces.

Shortly after this was taken a hen happened by, took one look at the new person and ran away. Maybe it works better as a scarehen than a scarecrow. Since the hen house is not immune to crow attack this is not necessarily a step in the right direction.