Monday 14 April 2014

A find.

To the right of our porch, where it joins on to the front wall of the house, is a New Dawn climbing rose.   At its feet, aquelegia self-seed every year, and as the position faces due South they are already grown quite tall.

A hen pheasant has chosen this spot for her nest this year, laying one egg each day and carefully covering them with bits of straw and leaves, coming next morning to lay another egg.   The farmer found the nest yesterday, after seeing the hen pheasant in the front walled garden every day for the last week.

This morning, straight after breakfast, I crept out to look if she was on the nest.   She wasn't, so I took a couple of photographs for you to see.   They are neither of them good shots but I wanted to get out of her way as quickly as possible and I didn't wish to disturb anything.

A hen pheasant laid in the garden last year and I worried that she would never get the young ones out of the garden, because it has quite a high wall round it.   But she led them down to the gate, flew over and then encouraged them to go under the gate.   Pheasant always quit the nest site quickly after the chicks are hatched as there is quite a strong smell from the empty eggs and this can be picked up by the fox.

Another exciting thing to keep my eye on.


13 comments:

Frugal in Derbyshire said...

oh My ! How exciting. How long incubation ?
Gill

Heather said...

How lovely to have that nest so close to the house. She must know you will keep an eye on her and her babies.

Cro Magnon said...

I look forward to further reports.

Frances said...

Looks as if your pheasant hen has picked a beautiful place for her nest. I love the bit about letting a prior brood make their exit under the gate.

Best wishes.

jinxxxygirl said...

Oh! I hope you get to see the babies when they hatch! Hugs! deb

angryparsnip said...

What a clever Mum.
How lucky for you and us to see what will happen !
I had a quail nest in my side yard but I never got to see the chicks in the nest because they move right away too.

cheers, parsnip

MorningAJ said...

Wonderful! We don't get any birds in our garden because of the cats.

Crafty Green Poet said...

lovely, i hope they raise their chicks successfully

Em Parkinson said...

So exciting! Updates please....

Gwil W said...

Yes a great find, keep us posted.

Willow said...

That's exciting ~ I wish we had pheasants around here. Once in a blue moon we will see one , usually a stray from a town many miles away that stocks them in a specified area once a year for hunting purposes.

Dartford Warbler said...

What a lovely find. I hope the hen pheasant has a successful brood this year. We had a beautiful cock pheasant visiting us all over the winter ( for bird seed), but now he has gone off to find a wife.

thousandflower said...

I have had New Dawn roses in my life ever since I was a little girl. My Grandmother had a huge one on her house and she gave me a cutting as a present. When I moved to my island in the 70's the first house I lived in had a big rose on the front of it. The first spring it turned out to be a New Dawn. I took cuttings of that one to the farm where we live now. I love that rose.