Yesterday was hotter than Hades (high ~103) causing birds to do as little as possible other than avoid the heat. Today was much cooler with nice breeze. My infant son Trueman and I went out into lawn to watch the two flocks of free-ranging juveniles that have overlapping ranges centered on the mowed portion of the yard. The dog Scoob was also with us as we were laying in grass piddling about watching the goings on. Trueman is just shy of be able to stand free but can get around by crawling and “curtain climbing”. The little bugger was going back and forth between Scoob and I for a good hour as I made observations. Once a cockerel / stag came in close and Trueman crawled after it like opossum chases a bullfrog, in short rapid bursts. Cockerel probably did not realize Trueman’s evil intent but found a better place to be otherwise.
During the time interval of observations several play fights broke out within the flocks of the games which were about 16 weeks old. Normally with their dad about that is all the farther fights go but he is penned up in cockyard. The fights were breaking into serious knock-down brawls which often lead to serious damage or even death. When such fights start causing damage I either have to isolate combatants or whip out hose and water them down to point they get hypothermia and sometimes even then they have to be separated. If fight is just getting underway I can break it up just by going over there but I am not around more than 4 hours of the day. Today another method became apparent that may have been in place for some time. When a fight gets serious the combatants make different vocalizations and their wings can be heard to clearly pop against each other. During the one hour observation interval three fights broke out and each time Scoob got up, ran over and pinned one or both birds to the ground. The pinned bird(s) squawled bloody murder and Scoob let them up. In each instance the fight stopped even if both birds ran in same direction. After each event, Scoob returned to Trueman and I to simply enjoy the evening. Scoob seemed to be monitoring for such fights by sound only since he was more interested in watching pasture where red fox like to hunt rodents. I suspect Scoob is doing this even while I am at work.
This may enable stags to run together longer before they have to be isolated permanently.
During the time interval of observations several play fights broke out within the flocks of the games which were about 16 weeks old. Normally with their dad about that is all the farther fights go but he is penned up in cockyard. The fights were breaking into serious knock-down brawls which often lead to serious damage or even death. When such fights start causing damage I either have to isolate combatants or whip out hose and water them down to point they get hypothermia and sometimes even then they have to be separated. If fight is just getting underway I can break it up just by going over there but I am not around more than 4 hours of the day. Today another method became apparent that may have been in place for some time. When a fight gets serious the combatants make different vocalizations and their wings can be heard to clearly pop against each other. During the one hour observation interval three fights broke out and each time Scoob got up, ran over and pinned one or both birds to the ground. The pinned bird(s) squawled bloody murder and Scoob let them up. In each instance the fight stopped even if both birds ran in same direction. After each event, Scoob returned to Trueman and I to simply enjoy the evening. Scoob seemed to be monitoring for such fights by sound only since he was more interested in watching pasture where red fox like to hunt rodents. I suspect Scoob is doing this even while I am at work.
This may enable stags to run together longer before they have to be isolated permanently.
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Counting them maybe?
