Gurdon - Doing Bird

Martin Gurdon is a freelance journalist, columnist and author, specializing in motoring but writing about a whole raft of other subjects. He is a contributor to the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, London Evening Standard, Your Chickens, and Classic Cars magazine, where he is a columnist. Martin is the author of Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance, his first book, and the follow-up, Travels With My Chicken.

Also by Martin Gurdon

Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance
Travels With My Chicken

A Chicken Keepers Year

Martin Gurdon

Constable London

Constable & Robinson Ltd
5556 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the UK by Constable,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013

Copyright Martin Gurdon, 2013

The right of Martin Gurdon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication data is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78033-193-5 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-78033-398-4 (ebook)

Printed and bound in the UK

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Cover design and illustration: www.headdesign.co.uk

Special thanks to Sheila Ableman, whose hard work made this book happen, and whose thoughtful advice made it better. Leo Hollis, Charlotte Macdonald, Sue Viccars, Andreas Campomar and everyone at Constable & Robinson for more of the same. Elvi Murcell (I nicked something she said about her hair), David and Jenny Gurdon and especially my wife Jane.

For Philip Gurdon, who liked words too.

Welcome to the sometimes-weird world of the amateur domestic bird keeper.

Im a writer who has spent the last fourteen years sharing a rural Kentish back garden with my wife, a dog, a cat and an ever-changing flock of chickens. More recently, this space has grown busier, with the arrival of Indian Runner ducks and a fluctuating colony of doves. The surprising, sometimes moving and often funny ways they reacted to us, and each other, lie at the heart of this book. Charting their arrivals, lives, enthusiasms, fears and exits also drives the story it contains. If youve thought about keeping hens or other domestic birds as thousands of people have in recent years I hope Doing Bird will show you what this can be like; and, if youre there already, that youll get a feeling of recognition.

This book covers the story of a year spent as a bird keeper in a domestic setting: the social and seasonal expansions, contractions, comings and goings that the human and animal occupants of our home experienced over that time. Some episodes are based on events that happened in earlier years; sometimes Ive ferreted about in our recent history to expand on them. This means that some of the birds or animals weve owned, but who are no longer with us, put in the odd appearance too.

Ultimately, writing Doing Bird felt like taking a trip over the recent past, and I enjoyed the journey. I hope you do too.

CHILLING OUT

My hand was stuck.

It was 5.30 on a winter weekday morning, and the sky was a cloud-free deep blue, lit by a big full moon. As Id made my way through the garden I hadnt needed to use my torch. I could see my muddy green wellingtons sinking ankle-deep into the moonlit, meringue-hard snow, which cracked with each step. Then I tripped, and nearly fell face first into the snow, instead breaking my fall with gloveless hands.

Cursing softly, I approached the henhouse. Everything was very still, cloaked by a pervasive cold. Naked, wet hands and a sub-zero temperature made touching things a dangerous proposition, but I still had to unlock one of the aviary doors, secured by a cheap metal latch which felt as if it was made of metallic marshmallow. This was so bloody cold the skin of my numbed fingers instantly stuck to it: Natures way of saying Go away, dry your hands and put your gloves on. My brain was functioning on reflex and I was deaf to Natures entreaties, so wrenching my hand free from the latch I opened the door and grabbed the chicken drinker.

Looking like a childs drawing of a Soviet space rocket, this stood about two feet tall, and was made in two parts: a removable cylinder with a handle and a pointy top, which covered another cylinder. The latter was attached to a sort of dish arrangement from which the chickens drank. Once it was exposed you poured water into it (filling the dish), then refitted the outer cylinder, a bit like a giant robots galvanized condom.

On cold mornings like this one the drinker only worked if youd emptied it the night before. Once again I hadnt and the contents had frozen solid, making opening and refilling the accursed item impossible. The handle was bent sideways, thanks to a previous unsuccessful attempt to shatter the frozen contents by turning the drinker upside down and banging the lid on the rock-hard ground.

As I wrapped my already numbed hand round the handle it instantly felt as if my icy fingers had been welded there. Unable to move them, I was now bent in a lumpy arc over the drinker. Frosted blasphemy broke the silence as I contemplated my rapidly freezing hand, uselessly gripping its handle.

Fearing that prising it off would result in removing a layer of skin, I considered carrying it back to the house, where we could both warm up enough to be parted without injury. This seemed like a good plan, but when I tried straightening up I found that the drinker had also welded itself to the ground. Muttering Shit, I kicked it, but it didnt budge. With an escalating feeling of panic I kept kicking until one of my boots crunched against the drinker with a dull clang, viciously compressing the toes of my right foot. I realized that normally this would have hurt a lot; in fact, had things been a little warmer, and my circulation working properly, it would have been bloody excruciating. Instead the biggest toes of my right foot just felt deader than before.

Releasing another stream of invective I gave the thing a final, brutal kick, which dislodged it from the ground, leaving a dinner-plate-sized disc of frost-free earth. Now I could stand up straight, but was still fused to the drinkers handle. Should I go back into the house like this? An absurd vision of clanking into the bedroom, cup of tea for my wife in one hand and chicken drinker stuck to the other, floated into my mind. Sod it; I was just going to have to prise it off my fingers, and live with the consequences. Clasping my frozen hand, I yanked downwards, feeling the flesh stretching until, suddenly, I was free, and apparently not in agony. Since Id expected it to hurt a lot Id made a great deal of noise, and from inside the henhouse there could be heard some avian shuffling, followed by irritable Dont you know what time it is? clucking.

Our birds roost in a garden shed with a saggy floor, on either side of which is a pair of big, home-made aviaries with doors secured by catches made from cheap, soft metal. Both aviaries contain garden benches that have become too wobbly for human bottoms to sit on, but are capable of sustaining a perching Buff Orpington. Normally our flock of chickens is more than keen to get up. Hearing me coming will result in a lot of argy-bargy and milling about in the dark, as the girls collide with each other or perhaps engage in some low-key bullying. Sometimes Svenson the cockerel will make his presence felt by crowing in a determined macho fashion, especially if he hears me stamping about and decides that Ive been too slow in letting everyone out.