Throughout the film Jurassic Park there are allusions to the fact that dinosaurs are more like birds than reptiles. I think that we have one of their descendents in the garden. Yesterday Aliss was found excavating the root parsley, having somehow got in to the vegetable enclosure. She was removed, the netting examined for gaps, and any sources of weakness dealt with.

Juvenile delinquent chicken

Ten minutes later she was back in there. Additional barriers were added at the points we thought she might be entering.

Five minutes later she was back in there, having flapped over the barriers.

Netting was placed over the top of the target area.

Ten minutes later, she was in there again. Busily excavating.

The netting was rearranged – corners were tucked in, gaps were blocked, canes were used to secure edges of mesh. We watched what she would do.

She began by examining the place she had entered previously – stretching up, trying to poke her head through the mesh. She then moved on round the enclosure. There is a scene in Jurassic Park where Muldoon, the game warden, explains that the raptors…

never attack the same place twice. They were testing the fence for weaknesses, systematically. They remember.

And so did Aliss… working her way round the perimeter of the entire area – testing for weaknesses. It took her quite a while, but eventually she returned to her starting point, having been unable to gain access anywhere. And at this point she gave up and went away to investigate another part of the garden.

We should be careful of when we give names. Black Aliss is living up to hers, just as Esmeralda has turned out to be top chicken. I wonder if Perdy will start singing opera next!

-oOOo-

And a slight aside – today is the first day we have had four eggs, one from each chicken. A couple of weeks ago there was a day when we had four eggs, one each from two chickens and two from one chicken, but that’s another story…