I spoke to the SWT today and they have told me that one of the Osprey chicks is fifty days old today. They normally fledge at about forty nine days. It looks as if it will be any time now.
Although I penned the Sheep in some while back, I have not had time to sort them out to send them off to market to be sold. If I had sold them when I first got them in I would have needed to sort the Ewes with their Lambs by number marking them with a coloured marker. There would have been to many Ewes and Lambs to put into one pen at market. The chances of the Lambs going into the same pen as their mother is pretty remote, so it was important to have sorted them before they went off.
As it was, the lambs were able to go in and out of the pen as they wanted. Because of their size they could easily get through the pens bars, as and when they pleased. Now there are only six or so that are going in, the rest disappeared about six days ago. I was not on the farm when they went, and was only told the next day. By all accounts someone came through the farm with a dog as the Lambs were walking around free range, down the drive, from the pen area to a field, as they have done since the Ewes were first penned in. The dog was not on a lead and chased the lambs up the drive to the farm entrance. They have not been seen since, until today when I got a phone call from the Animal Health and Welfare, asking if was missing any sheep. Yes they were mine and had been put into a neighbours field, two farms up the valley. This is the second time that I have had to apologise to him in the past few weeks, because of the Sheep.
It is going to be a bit of a job trying to get them back home. As they are Lambs they will be pretty wild and will not be easy herd along the roads back to the farm, they will have a mind of their own and go every where other than the place we want them. The Farmer has got to move his sheep tomorrow, so he is going take them first into the field where my Lambs are, hopefully they will go back to his yard where we can sort them out and return them in a van we have back to Denbury. Being away from their mother for the past week they have weaned themselves, so I will be able to send them to market on Saturday.
The Fox I had on camera on this afternoon, by the Bird feeder, was a bit lucky. The feeder is very close to the farm house. At the time it was feeding, Tass and kye were within a few yards from it, it was only the lie of the path that made it out of sight from the Dogs, who for sure would have chased it if they had seen the Fox.