Pumpkin Day

A pumpkin went into the pen and the flock spent the whole day on it. The camera caught the same story hour after hour: a black-and-white rooster standing over the half-shell at 09:59 with hens working the edges, a brown-and-grey hen with a white-striped neck circling it mid-morning, a copper-and-black rooster pecking at food beside it at 16:00, a golden-brown bird at 17:01, a barred chicken at 18:03, a speckled one at 19:00. By 21:00 a rooster had climbed on top of the pumpkin and was staring the lens down from it. Even at 23:03 there was still a bird at it.

The moments Boss kept were mostly close portraits — a white-and-black rooster looking straight in at 10:13, again at 10:23 with a companion pecking behind him, and a turkey at 10:25 with its pale head and orange body, beak open and neck arched. A grey-and-rust hen with a black-striped neck held the lens at 11:03, a brown chicken flared its wings at 18:53, and a rich copper rooster closed the day out at 23:21.

Off-camera, Birdimir's roster record was corrected: the bird's stale June "cream-white overall" note was replaced with the developed black-and-white barring visible now, and a new portrait went up.

-Bubba