bathing ladies & silver bird

Especially for Janet: the black and white bird is the silver cock pheasant who so hates being handled that he uses his spurs, which can just be seen, to defend himself against all comers. He was unwilling to strike a pose in case it was a trick to move him again! Chicks are now in huge blue crate in the porch of the house - so looks like we live in a shed. They make a nice background noise though, and will soon be on the table in quite a different form - roasted and crispy.... Official photographer forgot to take a snap of Skipper and his very, very smart dressage companion yesterday. Skipper disgraced himself by spinning around in the road and running away from an old hay bale left at the edge of a field (you would have thought it was a crouching tiger judging by the speed of Skipper's retreat). He was persuaded to pass the moster eventually, but didn't cover himself in glory. The dressage horse only napped once at some traffic warning ribbon/signs, so all in all we considered this a successful educational outing. We pottered around about 4 miles of lanes and tracks making just one or two hesitation quite acceptable overall, and no-one fell off - always a bonus. In absence of photo of yellow and brown horses together I just managed to snap lorry containing smart visitor as it disappeared out of yard. Better luck next time. Final photo (or first, depending which order they load up) is right outside house porch door (same porch with chicks inside). Ladies bathing with friends, lawn akin to ploughed field, so visitors beware, poultry staging massive takeover bid for whole house. Probably find us in hen-house by next week.