Baby hedgehog. A little bit of an aside.. We have some new creatures in the garden. The cats heard snuffling and rummaging in the leaf pile next to the oil tank - this was back in June - and I found that a fairly large hedgehog had made its home there. What we didn't realise was that it was pregnant! My daughter discovered one of its babies. We now have some baby hedgehogs in the garden too. This is in addition to the tiny mice that have taken up residence in the "log isl

12 July return from Chiang-Mai. We returned from our holiday to Chiang-Mai to find all was well. There was still plenty of food and water in the hoppers, the hen was still brooding on her nest and all eggs were accounted for. Telling the hens apart. Lucy and Susan. It was around this point that I discovered a way to tell the two hens apart. Peafowl have an ornamental comb on top of their heads. It may also serve functional purpose but this is a matter of ongoing research

June 2026 - first eggs. We had a holiday to Chiang-Mai planned for the first week of July. I had noticed Mr.Tumnus get jiggy with the hens in May and now in June the hens laid their first eggs. 14 June 2026: Reading my book and watching the hens new behaviour. It was an interesting process to watch because the hen that was about to lay would spend the bulk of the day normally (or perhaps resting more than normal) but become agitated towards evening with what became the patte

Christmas 2025. I had wondered whether the cold weather would once again bring respiratory infections back for the hen that had struggled during Dec 2024 and Jan 2025. This year however there was no signs of any problems at all which was heartening. January and February had been very wet. As a result the peafowl had spent more time than usual up on roost keeping dry. The birds roost every night on the perches in the aviary. The often retire to the perches in the middle of

Greening up the run. With the return of the warmer weather Mr.Tumnus and his hens enjoyed their first Spring and Summer. You can see they have become more clearly distinguishable in colouring. Mr.Tumus now clearly blue rather than green but not yet mature enough to have the characteristic peacock train. (Sexual maturity for peafowl is normally once they are two years old). Early Spring 2025: The run is still quite bare. The video above shows them eating some grass cutting

Mistaken identity. As the plumage began to change and they got increasingly green around the necks I made the mistake of thinking that this green neck indicated that they were both females - since that is how adult females are. Mr Tumnus. On 10 October I agreed with Alex to purchase a third chick that was from a younger clutch that he was fairly confident was a male. When I added him to the aviary the two existing birds were not particularly friendly and he did a lot of runn

Making an outdoor run. With the month-old new chicks installed in the aviary I was keen to get to work on a proper external run for them before they got too big. Inspiration. I basically copied the idea that I saw down at Alex Birds in Kilkeel. Here's a video showing a type of bird I've never seen before in an enclosure formed from a poly-tunnel frame with netting instead of plastic. 24 Aug 2024: Enclosure that I was inspired by. My version. In order to maximise the space

New chicks. Peacocks mate around June and lay a couple of clutches each year in July and August. I was keen to ensure that I got the peacocks as chicks this time to maximise their chances of being re-homed successfully. 24 Aug 2024: Two new chicks installed in the rabbit hutch in the aviary. Pot-luck purchase. I agreed with Alex that I would purchase 2 chicks from different clutches - hoping that I would get one male and one female. If they turned out to be identical then I

The show must go on. Well, with the peacocks having escaped I now felt a bit silly. Silly for letting them out. Silly for having built an aviary in the back garden with nothing in it! The back yard was still in a sorry state as it had been winter and too wet and nasty for doing any work. So things sat for a couple of months through February and March whilst I reflected on the mishaps and also thought about how to improve the yard. Ground up. The bamboo border was beginning

Oops. The peacocks arrived here at there new home on the 4th Dec 2023. In time for the darkest, wettest most horrible part of the year. Also my back yard was in such a sorry state I was feeling really bad about their new environment. The rain lashed and the wind howled and they sat inside the aviary for days at a time on their perch looking ... glum. Dec 2023: A very sorry looking back yard and temporary run! The sorry state of things was so far removed from my dream of pea

Re-homing our new birds. This was my first time owning any kind of bird. Having made the aviary show in Post 3, I was excited to go and collect the new occupants from Alex Birds in Kilkeel. I'd agreed with Alex some time before for him to reserve me a mating pair this season. He'd agreed to hang on to them while I built the aviary which would take a month or so. The thatching for the aviary was coming from China and unfortunately there had been delays. As a result I could

To the manor born. I've always wanted to live in a grand country estate. But in reality I live on a council housing estate. Ah well. If i did live in a huge country estate I'd have peacocks. I think they are splendid birds. So while I'm waiting for my country estate dream to materialise I thought I'd get to work on the parts of the dream I can actually do now. The inspiration for the structure came from playing crazy golf at the Dundonald Pirate Crazy Golf . I liked the

Border control. I'm not a massive fan of having fences and walls around my garden. The front garden just has an 8 inch high demarcation of the boundary rather than something that blocks my view. I quite like it that way. The 6ft tall fence at the side of my house was functional but a bit ugly in my opinion. I decided to take the panels down and stash it all behind my tin shed. Leaving the concrete posts in place. That way if i made a mistake I could always put the fence

To the manor born. Peacocks are more typically associated with Country Estates than council housing estates!I'm still waiting on the country pile, but until i win the lottery I’ll have to work with what i have got.. Deliberating. I'm a tree-hugger and i must have deliberated for 5 years about whether to cut this tree down. Its a multi-stem (rather than single trunk) fast-growing Leylandii and not of special ecological value. But its a massive tree that probably took 20 years

If you've seen my previous post on a simple but immersive 3D Pac-Man game then you've already seen the inspiration for Scurry! 3D Pac-Man was only a fun experiment with my kids, but they loved it! It turned out that Pac-Man in first-person perspective is darn scary ! 3D Pac-Man experiment Needs must In October 2025 I decided to take the plunge and go full-time as a video-game developer. I had some familiarity already with Unity, Blender etc from my amateur-hour endeavours an

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