Laurel thinks the fence has been built solely for his benefit, it allows him to patrol part of the smallholding from a useful viewpoint. Mrs Laurel is AWOL at present, hopefully sat on eggs. Laurel calls every 45 seconds just to let her know where he is. For some reason war broke out in the aviary, the quails have formed two tribes and are hell bent on killing each other. There is no apparent reason for this conflict, they have masses of space, unlimited food and water, but the factions had to be split up early doors, casualties abounded on both sides and the least hen packed and most aggressive gang were put in the greenhouse while we thought quite what to do. The stroppy little buggers in the greenhouse had other ideas and broke out to wreak havoc on the world, which is where they discovered that being an aggressive little quail in an aviary has very different consequences than outdoors. By late evening three surviving quail were doing a very passable re-enactment of Custer's last stand while predators closed in. Yours truly rode to the rescue ignoring the fact that A) Finding walking impossible due to large areas of skin missing from feet and B) Quail choosing last stand action in worlds biggest nettle patch and rescue party only clothed in shorts and t shirt. Despite this I managed to catch one, then a second, much to our mutual surprise, she recovered quicker than I and as I tried to put her in my pocket (dont ask) she flew off into a mightier patch of stingers. A third escaped the closing jaws of a large dog and as she flew over my head was almost caught, the change in trajectory the impact with my hand caused landed her dead centre of the brambles. I retreated with my one captive and will wait and see which vermin cat turns up not wanting breakfast.
Meanwhile someone is finding his training regime boring......
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