Wildlife February 2010

[Ragged Robin]

Olga your great photo of the spotty Thrush really made me smile - the look says it all!

[Armin]

Lori,
nice chickens and lovely brasilian cardinals pictures from Kaua'i / Hawaii.

Is the shot of the cockfight part of a tournament?
And are you going to show us more exiting things from your trip to Kaua'i?

[Paddy Tobin]

A hen from Ireland - named "June"

Paddy

[Ragged Robin]

Lori, I love the photo of the jungle fowl striding across the grass - so trim and athletic - the size of the head in proportion looks really small.

Paddy, your portrait of 'June' is a great study of a chicken with character 

[mark smyth]

June looks very angry

[ranunculus]

June looks very angry

Perhaps she is 'busting out all over'?   

[Ragged Robin]

  ;    D
...or just gritting her beak 

[Lori S.]

Is the shot of the cockfight part of a tournament?
And are you going to show us more exiting things from your trip to Kaua'i?

Armin, not a tournament - just part of the free entertainment on the lawn at the little beachfront hotel where we stayed!  (That and some guy being taken down by the police... I preferred the antics of the chickens.)
I have been very lazy about it, but, yes, I'll put together a few photos of the flora of Kaua'i - thanks!

[Paddy Tobin]

June is the most docile of our hens and will always be first of the group to follow me around the garden and if I take a garden fork in my hands she will come to me at top speed and it is almost impossible to dig as she stands exactly where the fork is going to enter the ground so as to be on the spot when earthworms are turned up.

Paddy

[Lesley Cox]

I thought June looked pensive rather than angry. She is a beautiful lady anyway.

Why are the females of the species called chickens in America/Canada and called hens in the UK and Australia and NZ (or chooks, here, too)? For us, chickens are the very young ones.

Having asked the question though, we do seem to accept that once dead and in the supermarket freezer or in a recipe, they become chickens.

[Lori S.]

Seems to me that "chickens" is the common generic term in Canada/US, and that "rooster" (rarely, "cock" as this leads to the risk of double entrendre , which would cause us PC folk to blush and stammer) and "hen" are the usual male and female terms...  
I've also heard "chook" used... had assumed it referred specifically to hens but wasn't sure.    

[Paddy Tobin]

Same as N.Z. here in Ireland. Chickens are young ones - or dead ones. Adults are cocks and hens. PC people get upset over very little.

Paddy

[Michael J Campbell]

Having asked the question though, we do seem to accept that once dead and in the supermarket freezer or in a recipe, they become chickens.

Lesley,the same applies to sheep,butchers only sell spring lamb,where do all the sheep go.?

[mark smyth]

The sheep go in to cheap nasty TV dinners

[Lesley Cox]

Not here they don't Mark. Lamb is just that, less than a year old, then a year to two years is called hogget and is quite expensive and has a better (more developed) flavour than lamb, and after that it becomes mutton which is not sold a lot as such nowadays. Most stock is killed as either lamb or hogget or retained as breeding stock. Of course eventually those are culled out and probably go for pet food.

A local delicacy ( ) is the mutton pie, made from minced mutton, onion etc, which as it happens I rather like but it tends to be very greasy.