8th May 2016 ..

... and so the the saga begins once more !!

We have news !! Some happy ... some potentially not so ....

I am happy to report that on Saturday morning (7/5/16), Billy & Betty welcomed 6 new hatchlings into the world.

Here is chick number 1 :

By teatime, 5 more chicks were born :

After checking again this morning, 2 more appear to have hatched, leaving just 2 eggs still to hatch.

Here we have the whole brood of 8 hatchlings :

Going on previous years, the non hatching of some eggs is not so unusual, however, further observations may well deem the non hatchings this year, as a blessing in disguise. 

Why do I say this ? Well, the not so happy news, is that Billy seems to have gone awol ! Hopefully, he's just out on the town with the lads, celebrating his fatherhood ! But in the meantime, Betty is having to contend with finding food for 8 hungry mouths, on her own !!

We have already seen in past years, that sometimes single parenthood doesn't pan out too well, so, fingers crossed that Billy returns to help out ...

In the meantime, I  have scattered various tasty treats around the garden, let's hope Betty manages to find them ..

So, it seems that once again we may be in for a rocky ride (sorry Linda!) .. 

Fingers crossed that Betty prevails...