Friday 25 November 2016

And back to Snowpea

Our super-mum, Snowpea, has hatched her fourth brood! Six little babies, all doing beautifully - until this morning - when there were only five. Snowpea defends them fiercely, and hunts for food all day long, but I can only imagine one either got lost (and froze overnight) or was attacked and killed by another bird. The tiny chicks do get confused as to which quail is mum, if there are too many around.

Anyway, they are gorgeous, and enjoying all the insects that show up when we tackle our overgrown weed patches...
"This is a jackjumper ant, kids - they bite, so eat it quickly."

Snowpea and the three greediest chicks who stay close by...you can just see their wing feathers starting to sprout.

"Ooh mum, I can't eat that - yuk!"

"If you just wait, it'll come out again any minute now..."

"I know there's something good under here."

No comments:

Post a Comment