Feathered Follies: Episode One

The best adventures for staff here at FortWhyte Alive always seem to happen right at the end of the work day.

I was due for an adventure.  My days had been ending far too normally of late - I was getting used to shutting down and heading home.

Yesterday, my number came up!

As I drove down Sam Fabro Way to lock our front gate, I passed FortWhyte Farms chicken pasture.  The pastured poultry live in large, moveable pens, called chicken tractors.  However, the poultry were not so much pastured as...everywhere...including outside the knee-high electric fence in place to keep out animals like weasels.

I pulled my vehicle over, and quickly took stock of the situation.

(One could even say I took "chicken stock" of the situation, if one was fond of puns..  Not being that person, I won't...but one could say it if one was so inclined.)


White meat birds mingled with golden laying hens.  A rooster was chasing hens, panicking them, and often as not causing the hens to take a short-hop flight, and land outside of their safety fence.

Stepping out of my vehicle and hopping the ditch, I realized that though I'm not a worker on the farm, this was my problem.  Everyone else was home for the day - judging by the food and water supply, the farm had set the chickens up to be self-sufficient for the long weekend.  I had to at least find some way of getting the chickens back inside their safety fence for the night.  After all, what if a mink, skunk or a...

WEASEL!!!*

There it was!  Fifteen yards from where I'd crossed the ditch, a long-tailed weasel popped up!  It crawled to the edge of the safety fence, and stood on it's hing legs to get a better view of its prospective dinner.

I ran towards the weasel.  It dropped to all fours, and slithered back into the well-vegetated ditch.  The instant I turned my back, it poked its head out of cover, scanning for an errant chicken close enough to catch.  I yelled, it hid.  We played this game for a few minutes. More and more chickens hopped the fence into the danger zone.

I had a multi-tool.  I had a first-aid kit; I wasn't sure how it might help, but there it was, on my belt.  I had tried calling farm staff as soon as I saw what was going on, and received no answer, so my phone was not very much help.  I had my trusty FortWhyte Alive ball cap.

I had escaped chickens.  I had a hungry weasel watching the escaped chickens.

It's been said that heroes are not born, they're made.  I tend to think they're not made, they're called.

An agricultural adventure was calling.  Collect.  I accepted the charges, and waded into the clucking, feather-flying, dropping-slicked whirlwind.  Where was this going to end up?  The only thing I knew for sure:  I was not going to lose a chicken to the weasel.

Does Barret slip on chicken poop?  Does the hungry weasel have a chicken dinner?  Is the first aid kit actually useful?
 
Tune in tomorrow for the next episode of Feathered Follies.

* This weasel image is courtesy of the US National Park Service, and is in the public domain.  The author acknowledges that though this is a fine-lookin' weasel, it is not the actual weasel from the story.  This image was used without the weasel's permission.

Full of Frost and Fog (or, why this winter has been abundant in beautiful, white mornings)

Hello, readers!

The past month has been one of the foggiest I can remember here at FortWhyte.  A side effect of milder-than-average overnight temperatures and daytime sun, we have experienced many nights with ground-level fog.

We've always been lucky enough to experience a fairly large number of mornings when the world has been coated with white hoar frost.

 

Hoar frost at FortWhyte Farms

(photo by J. Mulaire)

We've been especially lucky because every morning we've had hoar frost, we seem to have light south winds, as well.  The relatively slow wind speed has not broken the crystals of frost off trees, buildings, and plants, allowing us more brilliant white-frost-against-blue-sky mornings.

(Photo by I. Carter)

Hoar frost occurs when the air temperature drops.  Cold air can hold less water than warm air - as the air cools, water no longer bound up as water vapour condenses.  In the summer, we call this dew, and we see it on grass, trees, tents, etc.  In the winter, the grass, trees, tents, etc. are at a temperature colder than freezing.  As the water condenses, it freezes into thin, long crystals, "frosting" the landscape like a cake.

 

(Photo by I. Carter)

We've had a number of days in the last few weeks where the air has warmed up, snow has melted, and started to evaporate.  At nightfall, the air is warm and full of water.  After sunset, the air cools, and fog forms.  On some nights, objects cool faster than the air, creating ideal conditions for hoar frost.

Hoar frost is one of the perks of living in a winter climate.  I think knowing the natural principles at work make the phenomenon just a little bit more breathtaking.

(Photo by I. Carter)