Yesterday I found a rooster in my back garden.
I was mopping up the river that had spewed itself across my kitchen floor, following the badly fitted 'push-in' waste pipe that had managed to 'push out' itself and happened to glance out of the kitchen window.
There staring back at me was the most handsome rooster. I am not sure who was more shocked, him or me! He was a truly handsome specimen and my mouth watered at the thought ( that isn’t true...I added it for effect!). He was an adornment of white, dark gold, green & black sweeping feathers, topped off with a stunning red comb. I called to my eldest daughter, thinking perhaps I should lay off the home-made digestive biscuits due to sugar overload. After much scurrying around trying to find shoes, she finally made it into the garden & confirmed he was real and not another of my hallucinations...
A phone call to the wonderful lady from the RSPCA confirmed that he had in fact flown-the-nest several weeks before and I learnt from his owner, (who it transpires, is the local driving instructor and lives around the corner), that he is a 'Malaysian' Cockerel, hence the exotic array of colours. As she was in Sheffield for the night (her cup runneth over also!) I agreed to house him for the night, in an old hen coop that I made a couple of years ago from an old dog kennel. Our hens have all long-since been re-housed to better homes.
We had visited friends earlier in the day and on returning home, said rooster had disappeared. We eventually heard him crowing in next doors garden, as their excitable Springer Spaniel chased him around their garden. I finally cornered him, at which point he flew over the fence back into our garden and cowered down the side of a wall, where I couldn’t reach him. Using an old mop I found in next doors garden (where all good mops should be kept!), I ushered him back into my garden. Using an old towel I chased him around and several attempts later, I finally managed to grab his tail feathers and pick him up, towel by now discarded. He immediately began to scream at several decibels, the human equivalent of the sound ‘Owwww!’ My daughter ran and opened the door of the hen coop and I carried the screaming cockerel by his tail and pushed him inside. My heart was pounding and my ears were ringing from the screeching. My daughter and I collapsed in fits of laughter back in the house. I am still waiting for the local police report of a woman heard screaming in distress (but not found) in the early evening yesterday.
I am hoping he is still resident in the hen house this morning, but fear he may have hatched an
escape plot at dawn! I am not attempting to even sneak a peep until his owner arrives, cardboard box in hand and wearing a pair of thick gloves...although I may tentatively throw him a few seeds to keep him from starvation.
It all happens here in Higher Walton...
x
