This week’s theme for the Photo Gallery, kindly hosted by Tara Cain over at her blog Sticky Fingers, is the letter C.  Well now, this could be a veritable Pandora’s box… Chocolate, of course being the first thing that comes into my head, children which, I’m sure will be very popular, cooking, cakes, cookies… the world is our oyster.

So, what have I chosen? Well, I’m a bit predictable I suppose and I’m going for chickens. Until you keep them you cannot appreciate what interesting, busy little creatures they are. Every single one of them with their own little foibles, habits and quirks. All so different.

But in one thing they are all of the same mind – FOOD. With Polly, the Light Sussex (white one to the uninitiated), the alpha hen since Hetty died and queen greedy of the flock. It’s so funny to watch her when you put out three containers of corn in the afternoon. She runs around like a demented whatever, pushing in, eating some from this container, then rushing over to another eating some pushing fellow hens out of the way and then rushing off to another one and so on.

Chickens on a mission to find food!

When I’m at home, and in the summer when it’s lighter later, they are let out of their run. Off they roar, making a bee line for…. the bird feeders, knowing there are always easy pickings under the containers. The wheat that the finches and tits have discarded is what they’re after! It’s so funny watching them loitering around waiting for the grains to fall to the ground, at which time they all plunge in head first to get to them first.

If you value your life, you don’t go and sit in the garden with a cuppa  and a packet of Garibaldi biscuits. If you do, you get mobbed. I’ve had my biscuit snatched out of my fingers on it’s way to my mouth. They have no manners when it comes to food !