11 January

As a solitary hen for some weeks, Wilma has been wandering around forlorn and at a loss, eventually making a pet out of a blackbird.  She had been the least tame of our hens but without a flock of hens to follow she has begun following me around the garden, calling me when I go inside, standing wistfully on the deck and walking inside if the door is left open.  So this morning I brought home three young hens, about fourteen weeks old, Maude, a lavender Orpington, Mabel, a Light Sussex, and Goldie, a gold-laced Wyandotte, and put them in the small hen-house inside the larger coop, where Wilma can talk to them through the wire.  So far, Wilma has shown no interest in them at all, preferring to follow me back out of the coop.  I took her into the bush and turned over some logs, under which we found several spiders and a worm the size of a small snake.  Maude is asserting herself as the dominant hen of the three little ones, issuing completely random reprimands to the other two.  It will be interesting to see what happens when she and Wilma are released into each other’s company along with the others.