By: MARGARET BROWN
FOR THE second time in 20 years I have seen a quail. It is a shy and vocal little bird that may be heard but not seen and which migrates to its summer breeding area.
The mating call of ‘kiss me quick’ piped continuously from early spring onwards seems to come from every direction at once, wherever there are open spaces with grass cover. One piped up yesterday morning close to the house and there it was about 15 feet away looking out across the paddock. With a tuft for a tail and brown feathers flecked with white, fawn wings and a black crescent round the back of the neck, it had a surprisingly powerful voice.
While found right across Europe and also the north of Africa, as well as the long distances covered during migration with attendant losses, it is estimated that over two million a year fall victim to hunters in the EU. The annual bag in Eurasia is around four million and in France the ONCFS (Office Nationale de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage) is seeking greater control of the numbers killed. Also many are taken by natural predators.
The nests, which are a hollow in the ground hidden by vegetation with as many as 20 eggs laid sometimes by two females, is vulnerable to raiders. The male has no part in brooding, protecting or rearing his progeny.
At least some of the local partridge have survived infancy and, during our early morning walks, they fly out in twos and threes, tiny wings going like the clappers and making remarkable height away over the nearest hill.
From the amount of practicing heard from a gun club somewhere in the vicinity, the shooting season will be starting soon and that should take care of anything that lives in the bush covered foothills.
So short a life, but one may hope that practice makes perfect and the hunters shoot to kill, not maim. Then it will perhaps be another silent spring in 2008, after quite a break from the annual hunting spree of yesteryears.
Missing winter
Meanwhile, temperatures continue to rise and although it feels cooler indoors during the daytime, at night, when the fabric of the house gives back its heat, we lie sweltering in temperatures up to 30°C. Being surrounded with rocks and everything green having been bulldozed round the back of the house as a fire barrier, the bare red rock exhales a dragon’s breath as the boisterous afternoon wind dies away.
Our 10 years old adopted bitch Millie, overdressed in golden retriever shag pile, finds it rather too much. Despite having worn her coat to a saddle of short hair across her back by rubbing along the house wall, her shoulders and hips are still heavily covered and a visit to the hairdresser for a trim is imminent.
With overnight scratching, more hair is scattered about the place and she is undoubtedly missing the temperate climate and general dampness of her home in Wales. Regular shampoos and gentle grooming plus a tick and flea collar keep her free of parasites but we all long for a shower of rain.
A local cowman has been grazing his suckler herd on waste ground alongside our plot recently and his dogs, knowing no boundaries, come over the dry stone wall and torment Millie. She stands her ground, barking furiously and the herdsman shouts at me to remove my animal.
Afraid for her safety I do as I realise that although we think we own our couple of acres, all paid for a long time ago, this goes unrecognised by the locals when push comes to shove. I guess this is all part of the rich tapestry of life as an alien out in the sticks but little changes under the skin.
With industrial development and creeping urbanisation, livestock farming is slowly disappearing from the local landscape. It is interesting to watch as horses and ponies, sometimes tethered and otherwise behind electric fencing, are being kept wherever there is a small piece of ground and their numbers are increasing by the year.
Beast of burden
On the whole, they are no longer the scrawny specimens we used to see. Although appearing well cared for in most cases, there seems to be no provision of drinking water for animals exposed, without access to any shade, to the full heat of the sun during the long summer days.
While mules and donkeys are able to endure such deprivation, horses, with the exception of pure bred Arabians, do not have that in-bred ability and can only suffer. Perhaps their owners continue to see a beast of burden purely as a means of transport rather like a farmer treats his Land Rover or tractor.
As time goes by, maybe the attitude will change, instead of being well used but unloved four-by-fours. The horses and ponies may take on the guise of surrogate sports cars to be cherished and shined and even taken to a mechanic when things go wrong. Without doubt, once women and girls become involved in their welfare, things will begin to improve.
One of the unsolved mysteries of the human psyche is the real affinity between females and their equine alter egos. Both species thrive on the association but as always, there are exceptions.
