Little Sir Galahad

Picture this: A proud little rooster, a Mille Fluer bantam, stands on a garden path, his head high as he watches over his hens as foraging in the dark green ivy and the furry gray leaves of lambs ears. The sun glints on his lovely red gold feathers bringing out their coppery highlights. His tail arches high, blue-black and shimmering with iridescence.

I can't find that picture! I spent a good portion of the day yesterday going through my folders of pix and can only come to the conclusion that I accidentally deleted it somewhere along the way. I have backed up a lot of my pix, but those are mostly of family and the rooster fell through the cracks and into cyberspace!
Too late now! I am primed to talk about chickens.

For the most part the bantam chickens stay in the back of the house on the lower level, so I do watch them, but it was when Little Sir Galahad decided to bring his harem of five lovely hens into my garden last summer that I got an inkling of their complex social behavior.
Here, I have to tell you that we have too many roosters. The Mille Fluers learn to fly early on and since they more or less run wild in the back and roost in the Juniper Tree, they are hard to cull out. So, too many roosters. Even watching casually, I can see the difference in roosters is marked by the number of hens they are able to attract. Some of them form gangs prowling about, vying for any hen that might appear loose. Many form an alliance with one or two hens and they go about as pairs or a trio. But, Little Sir Galahad, well Galahad manged to attract and maintain the devotion of five lovely young pullets.

When Galahad and the girls first started appearing in my little garden, I was delighted because my garden was over run with snails. I started tossing them bits from my breakfast and was soon taking out extra bread to entice them to stay. As soon as the first tidbit hit the patio, Galahad would run over and pick it up, and then drop it, clucking excitedly. The hens would come running in and start gobbling. Only when they were surrounded by enough pieces of bread to keep all the hens busy would Galahad eat a piece himself, and then he performed a ritual of picking it up and dropping it, offering it to his hens and having it rejected exactly three times. The fourth time he picked it up, he would eat it himself!
I have seen other roosters dash in, deliver a hard peck to a little hen and snatch a tidbit from under her nose. These bully-boy roosters never form attachments to any hen. Hens seem to look for the same things their human counterparts seek in their mates, kindness and consideration as well as someone who will look after their best interests and provide as well as possible for them.
Galahad spent a good deal of his time looking for spots that would make appropriate nesting places for his ladies. I would see a violent heaving of the silver lace vine, and suddenly his head would pop out from the trembling depths, usually quite high up in the vine and he would commence making the exact cackle a hen makes when she lays an egg. Proud and excited, he would summon his wives to this fine nesting place. They would approach, ascertain at once that while this might be an excellent nesting place for birds, it would never do for chickens. They would stand around for a few moments gazing pityingly up at him and then wander off in search of a snail or two.
One of the places Galahad thought would make an excellent nesting place was a planter of petunias I had placed near the patio. I had put an autumn sage in the middle of a large, shallow planter and surrounded it with petunias. For days, he would fly up into the planter and start making the lets-lay-an-egg cackle. Gently, I would shoo him out and send him on his way. I placed small sharp rocks among the petunias to discourage him, but one day I returned from shopping, took my iced tea out to the patio and found petunias and rocks scratched out onto the ground and on either side of the autumn sage, a little hollow and in each hollow, a little egg. Galahad had convinced two of his ladies to lay there!
E. brought a couple of little nest boxes up from the back and placed them in strategic places, and sure enough, a couple of the hens started using them. It was while one of these young hens was off her clutch of eggs that I noticed some interesting behavior. She was sunning herself in some sand at the side of the house, singing a little, spreading her wings and dusting herself about, just enjoying the sunshine, all common chicken behavior. Then I noticed that occasionally she would jump up, go over to a grassy place, and scratch busily about, all the while clucking in the way Galahad clucked to summon his hens to food, before returning to her sunny spot. She did this repeatedly. For a moment I was puzzled. There were no other chickens about, and moreover, she didn't appear to be eating anything herself. Then I realized that the young hen who had never before raised a brood, was practicing calling her chicks to feed. I found this immensely endearing.
How like her I was when my first son was born. As an only child, I had absolutely no knowledge of, or experience with babies. Like her, I wanted desperately to be a good mother, to do the right things in the right way, and I prepared for motherhood in the best ways I could.
Sadly, (for me) Galahad chose our renter Tigger's yard over mine this year and his two remaining wives hatched out their chicks there. Worse, a fickle three of his wives were enticed to run off with another gallant young fellow.
"How could they!" I exclaimed indignantly to Eeyore.
I had thought I might get another pic of Galahad this morning, but it's raining. I can't complain about that!