Bog Myrtle & Peat

During the last two days, my pet blackcock has suddenly lost a great deal of feathers on his face and down his neck. I’ve been expecting his moult to kick in for the past week, but observing it at close hand has meant that I can see just how quickly it happens. Over the next two or three months he will replace his feathers with glossy new ones. Normally, wild blackcock go into hiding when the moult takes place, only emerging in early August with a kind of intermediate dress-code that is as much brown as it is blue. This is moulted out again in due course, and the birds are usually back at their best by October.

The cast to my blackcock’s eye has become much more obvious over the past few months. When I first got him, it was only visible in certain lights, but now the entire pupil is smoky grey and opaque. His blindness still hasn’t slowed him down, and he looks to be in good shape as he enters his third year.

I must admit that I’m looking forward to getting hold of his tail feathers once they come out. I’ve been enviously peering at them since September when they first started to look smart…