Roamin' in the Gloamin'

Leisler's (lesser noctule) bat. All three of these bat pics
are blagged off the Internet - just Google the species and
click on 'images'.

The young Hubbard poults are now penned in an area out towards our Western boundary and they have a fox proof coop of their own out in their run. This move has resulted in me having to "teach" them to go to bed inside the coop (not under it, you numpties!) and, being youthful, adolescent stop-outs, this is only possible as deepest dusk descends. It is pointless trying to round up 12 chickens and steer them through a dark pop-hole to "safety" before they are good and ready.

Our ever-useful bat detector box. 

So every evening, at that time when it looks much darker outdoors through the windows of a lit room, than it really is if you went out there, I find myself playing "chicken" with Mr Fox. The Hubbards are away from the house and a bit exposed were our brush-tailed chum to come exploring so, as it starts to look dark outside, I soon crack and have to go check on them to see if they might oblige me by going to bed. This has, in turn, led to me spending a lot more time outdoors in the gloaming than has recently been the case and I have rediscovered my fascination for bats.

The local bogs are a blanket of colour -
here is purple loosestrife and meadowsweet
in Currasallagh bog.

In Kent we were very keen on bats and could sit outside on our terrace any summer evening as the sun went down with the bat detector box standing on the table between the glasses of wine. We'd be chatting away till we were inevitably interupted by the patter, squelch, tick and 'raspberry' noises of bats passing over the garden(s) hunting their midges and mozzies.

We had lost the habit here for several reasons. First, dusk is an hour and a half later here in the West of Ireland than it is on the Greenwich Meridian, so we were already starting to think about bed by the time the bats came out. Second, those midges and mozzies - sitting outside in the half light here is not necessarily pleasant or restful. There also seemed to be far fewer bats, so we had several fruitless sits in conditions which would always have 'caught' you a bat or 6 in Kent. Also, in my head the bats we saw all seemed to be Pipistrelles.

These two move in just down the lane

Pips are perfectly good bats and users of bat-boxes like ours know there are "now" 2 species emitting their chirrups and squelches at 2 different frequencies. Normal Pips emit at around 45 kHz, and the 'new' Soprano Pips do their thing at 55 kHz. Obviously both those frequencies are well outside human hearing-range, but the bat box is there to 'Doppler' it all down pro-rata into human-audible noise. Google 'bat detector box' for details - they are around €120

There I was, then, wandering around in the half light whispering sweet lullabyes to a load of unco-operative white chickens when I found mysef being buzzed by a much bigger bat, obviously too big to be a pipistrelle. My brain was raking around the usual suspects like "Greater Horseshoe Bat" (just because it has the word 'greater' in its name) and Dubenton's bat because it happened to be cruising up and down above our big pond. But I had no idea whether we had GHBs in Ireland (we don't) and I was not sure whether you could pin Daubenton's down to species by bat-box frequency (you can't - he is one of the annoying 'mid-range' bats who shout at the same frequency as lots of other bats).

We may get this good at cheese making some day. This
pretend 'Parmesan' is from Sue and Rob

Off to the internet then to consult my 'tame' experts, Kent Wildlife Trust and then blog-regular, our own Mrs Silverwood who has been on ID training courses as part of the Irish bat-survey. I had forgotten that. She suggested Leisler's bat (aka the 'Lesser Noctule') Nyctalus leisleri. This is the biggest Irish bat (I now know) but one with which I have never crossed paths. Now I have and I am sure from my recent research that my bat was a Leisler's. This guy is reasonably easy to 'detect' as he emits at 20-30 kHz with nothing below 20. Naturally, I have been out each night since and not seen 'him' again but, heh, why would you expect co-operative bats when you are trying to guide unco-operative chickens to bed?

The 8-Ball

Sussex Ponte young rooster

Cast your mind back, if you would, to my post of 28th April this year (http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2013/04/of-hatching-chicks-and-flying-geese.html) and those little multi-coloured fluffy chicks hatched out under Broody Betty on her first sitting of the year. Those little mites are 'all growed up' now and most of them are bigger than the existing hens including BB herself. They are 16 weeks old now and approaching that significant poultry keeper's milestone 'Point of Lay'. Here even the ones which are very difficult to sex like the white Silkies we had back in Kent, and the black Jersey Giants we have here now, should either lay an egg or shout "Cock-a-Doodle-Dooo!" and give the game away.

La Bresse cross with a Buff Orp (head obscured)

There are 8 of them all still surviving and they have formed a tight-knit group who range around the 'farm' quite independently of the 'grown ups', always together. We call them "The 8-Ball" because they remind us of a group of golfers wandering round a golf course bantering with each other about who is playing with Top Flite balls because there's one here in the rough, who's sneaked onto the green, who's just played a blinding wood shot and inventing spurious scores to "card" (a well known 'verb' known only to golfers and sports commentators).

Jersey Giant (black) and Mini-Buff

The 8-Ball were hatched from eggs which came 5 from our own (Sussex Ponte) birds and 7 as a generous donation from Mentor Anne and Simon; a mixed bag of the main breeds they stock - Buff Orpingtons, Jersey Giants and a La Bresse cross. As luck would have it, only one of our 5 eggs hatched but all 7 of Anne's managed to. The 8-Ball now comprises one SP, 2 Buffs, 2 JGs, a La Bresse cross and 2 of a cross between Buffs and something smaller and possibly bantamised; these two are way smaller than their siblings and a lovely dark golden colour - we call them the 'Mini-Buffs'.

Buffs, the Sussex rooster and the La Bresse cross

As I said, some chicken varieties are hard to sex till they are at point of lay. Anne and Simon who are way more expert than us are not even prepared to take a punt on the Jerseys. Others start to show shape differences much sooner, so that we have known that the Sussex was a boy for weeks - bigger legs and feet, sticky-up tails, more developed wattle and combs and so on. They also seem to start behaving like roosters or being treated like hens by our existing rooster, William. He tries to mount them and we say "Ah ha! She might be a girl then!" Two of the youngsters start squaring up to one another as if to fight, and we suspect they are boys (though Simon tells us that sometimes 2 hens will do this as part of the pecking order process).

The 8 Ball gather round (and on) the keyhole bed.

Taking all this into account we think we have a male SP and a male La Bresse. We think the big pale pure Buffs are one of each. Both the mini-buffs may be hens and we have no idea on the Jerseys. I do not need to tell you that this can be bad new for the boys. You can only have one rooster in this set up and William the Conqueror is filling that slot, though the main rooster can tolerate and become quite matey with a 'buddy'. We quite fancy starting a Buff Orpington group, so we are hoping that William will get on with the Buff we think is a male. All the other boys may have shorter careers, possibly in the catering line. All the girls we hope will join our laying flock.

In other news we have been out this evening observing the Perseids Meteor shower. It was, to start with, a gorgeously clear night of the sort we have only ever experienced in Ireland, clear skies and no light pollution. There was a small amount of cloud low down on the NE horizon, just where we were expecting the Perseus constellation to rise. Liz was on an ironing marathon today and still going strong at 11 pm, so I went out to see what I could see. I took the bat-detector with me and very quickly started to hear the patter and squelch of either lots of bats or one bat lots of times. This was at 45-50 MHz, so we guess pipistrelle.

Sure enough, I saw a quick burst of 6 meteor streaks tracking from North across the Great Bear. Brilliant exciting stuff and I was keen to get Liz out there too, so that she could see some. When a hazy cloud came across from the west I feared she might miss the show, so I interrupted the ironing and called her out but sadly, too late - that was it. The bats kept whizzing around, one so close to my face I could feel the draught from his wingtips, but the haze grew thicker and we saw no more meteors. At 11:45 we called it a night and Liz came in to finish the ironing. There's dedication! Never mind, the Perseids are 'on' for a few days yet and we might get another clear sky tomorrow or the next day.