Not sure if they count as wild things...
Next door are away on a two week sailing holiday so we're looking after their four hens.
Yesterday evening when I went to shut them up for the night in their little henhouse, I realised that the small black hen (Marianne) was missing. Cue an hour of Uncle James and I shining our torches all around our neighbours' enormous garden looking for the hen. No luck, although I did surprise their cat from behind a trailer... which frightened the life out of me.
First thing this morning (6:30am, argh!) I went next door again to look for Marianne. There she was, pottering around on the lawn near the hens' pen (which has an electric fence). I then proceeded to try to catch her. Nope.
Marilyn (one of the other hens) is happy for you to stroke her, but Marianne was having none of it. We were both getting more and more flustered, so I eventually gave up, having tried to tempt her with food and silly baby talk to no avail. I went home, woke up Uncle James, and he got dressed and came next door with me to try to catch Marianne in a pincer movement.
That wasn't working either; he nearly caught her but didn't get a good enough grip and she wriggled away.
Eventually he chucked a load of corn in the far corner of the pen for the three hens in it to be distracted by, then opened up the pen with a wide door and we managed, between us, to herd Marianne into the pen. We then stuck bricks on a dodgy high edge of the pen which is presumably how she escaped in the first place.
I suppose we spent two hours in total trying to find her.
We're not getting paid for this, just getting the eggs. No doubt Marianne laid her egg somewhere random in the garden early this morning...
