Monday, January 11, 2010
THERE is a series of chores that I perform every morning, with the enthusiastic assistance of my dog.
But the long cold snap slightly altered our routine.
Our first job is to feed the hens and collect the eggs – not many of them at this time of year. The hen house has gutters that feed into a small open tank which provides drinking water. Occasionally in dry spells I have to top this up with a watering can but most of the year the rain does the job.
During the cold spell the tank turned into a block of ice. So, between feeding the hens and throwing the ball for the dog to retrieve, an extra chore was added – getting a kettle of hot water from the kitchen and pouring it into the tank. The water steamed on top of the ice and was cool enough to drink by the time the poultry had finished their dry rations.
The moment I appear at the hen run I am joined by two robins and a cock blackbird that steal bits of feed. They seemed delighted when I thawed out the water tank. I’m not sure whether wild birds can eat snow if they get thirsty during very cold weather but they certainly seem to appreciate warm water.
The next chore is the small pond on the patio with its five goldfish. They have grown a good bit since they arrived about nine months ago and seem very healthy. But they found the ice puzzling, swimming around beneath it and bumping it with their noses.
It was quite thick ice, several centimetres, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Pouring in another kettle of boiling water seemed dangerous. Fish suffer from thermal shock. But they are also susceptible to physical shock because of their lateral line –- a line of specially modified scales down each flank that are delicate organs for sensing under-water vibrations. So breaking the ice with a hammer also seemed like a bad idea.
I threw the ball again while I was considering this. The dog rushed off after it and, despite the fact that he has four wheel drive and I only have two, he completely lost his footing on the icy patio and ended up on his back in the herb garden.
Eventually I got the watering can and, because all the outside taps were frozen, took it into the house and filled it with room temperature water. I poured this into the pond and waited. When the ice was weakened I gently tapped out a hole about half a metre in diameter, lifting out the cakes of ice with the barbecue tongs. Then I was able to pour in the daily ration of food.
The next job was to check on the bird table and the feeders. Since the cold weather started the food had been disappearing at an astonishing rate. I’d also noticed some species that rarely settle on the bird table. Blackbirds, for example, were plucking up the courage to try it.
So when I’d finished all the refilling I went back to the hen house, opened a galvanised, rat-proof bin and took out a scoop of flaked oats. I scattered these over the thin crust of snow on the lawn for the benefit of all the wild birds that don’t like feeders or bird tables.
I left it at that. There were now two sources of drinking water – the hens’ tank and the pond. But I know some people who have neither hens nor pond who make up ingenious devices involving night-light candles to keep water thawed for wild birds in hard weather.
* dick.warner@examiner.ie
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