Sunday 4th August 2019

Napoloena
This is not a sight that will ever be repeated as last night the fox took Napoleona!!!! Guilt and huge sadness are all consuming – it is just so horrid losing animals like this!
Relaxed at Home
We ‘think’ she had hunkered down at bedtime in the deep ditch by the hedge – we found her there a few nights ago, sitting on a single egg. Last night when we went to shut up the stable door she wasn’t there so we automatically headed for the same spot by the hedge, expacting to find her and so bring her back up to the building. As we approached we were treated to the tell-tale sign of feathers, LOTS of feathers, until finally we came across the remains of poor Napoleona. The fox had obviously tried to get her through the hedge and failed!!
We had heard not a thing – there were no alarm calls from the other poultry or the geese. Rather annoyingly we had only moved the alapacas down to the bottom 3-acre that morning.. no coincidence the fox chose to strike less than a day later???
So, no more beautiful white feathers gleaming in sunlight as Napoleona strides forth across the paddock, no more perching proudly with her poults, no more white turkeys!! She was such am amazing mum as well. Thank goodness her current poults are old enough to look after themselves!!
All very gutting but sadly, all part of trying to manage the land in ways that the resident wildlife cannot always deal with as we would like!!
And now we have to think what to do about Banana (see 2nd)... plus we have one of Hedgerow Broody's offspring sitting on eggs somewhere in the very same hedge...
Aarrgh!