Everything is happening so quickly with the partridges, and I can hardly keep up. They are now paired off quite happily (more or less), and the past twelve hours have been spent building them some decent accomodation as recommended by the ever present GWCT manual. One thing that has really taken me by surprise is Continue reading

Having noticed the cock partridges starting to get a little frisky a few days ago, it was quite alarming to find that the hens have also been feeling the first stirrings of spring. One or two of my small stock of hens has suddenly started to show missing feathers around the rump and lower back, Continue reading

Just worth noting that the cold weather has brought on some new behaviour from the grey partridges. The cock birds are suddenly being very vocal and restless with each other, and I saw one of them keenly rogering another this morning. Perhaps this is in anticipation for spring, and I daresay this recent cold is Continue reading

Things went very quiet on the grey partridge front on the day that we shot the game cover. Three hen pheasants rose up out of the radishes, and the subsequent outburst of shooting put all of the partridges up in a single covey. None of the pheasants came down, but we were all so distracted Continue reading

Following the tidal wave of rats, I’ve been struggling to keep on top of all other projects. It was only when a damn rat had a go at one of my grey partridges that I was rudely awakened from the single minded pursuit of scaley-tailed invaders. The cock bird has survived, but I’m not even Continue reading

Some interesting things are happening to my grey partridges. The way that they are behaving now seems to have a great deal to do with the order in which they were released. Within hours of putting the birds up on the hill, a single hen had managed to escape from the pen. I have no Continue reading

Just a brief update on the grey partridges which have now been up on the hill for two months. Although it’s risking every cynical twist of fate to say it aloud, I haven’t lost a single one since I got them in July, and they are pretty well settled in the game cover. Since I Continue reading

The partridges are doing extremely well in their game cover, and I’ve now trickled half of them out into the field of bolted radishes and turnips. They are extremely loyal to their pen, and can be found within a few feet of where I let them out every day. I spent an hour this afternoon Continue reading

The partridges have now been up on the hill for ten days, and they seem to be doing remarkably well in spite of the weather. They look smarter with every passing day, and they are starting to get orange faces to go with their red stripy sides. One of them has somehow managed to escape Continue reading

There was a stressful start this morning when I moved half my grey partridges up onto the Chayne. I’m keeping half back to see if I can breed from them next year, so I didn’t have many to put out in the 12′ x 8′ pen. My transport system worked very well, and it took Continue reading