"Simple Gallantries"

One of our plant centre customers brought a cockerel into our shop asking if we would kill it for him. We gave the man some money for it instead and kept the bird as a pet. We had no hens but the cock was in love with Heidi, our old German shepherd dog. 

Today from Longlands Hide, where Ollie dog and I were sheltering from the rain, I saw a cock pheasant dropping its wing at a hen just like our Cocky Boy used to do to Heidi.

Charles Darwin wrote the following in reply to a letter asking him about the courtship of Fowls: ".... the simple gallantries offered by the cock to his hens, consists of bending himself sideways towards her, dropping one wing scraping it along the ground by a succession of quick jerks and striking it against his leg thus he draws up to her looking in her eye ....". 

It's amazing how brightly the colours of male birds shine at the moment. They're in peak condition for the breeding season.