Snowy cocks up

Here we see Snowy the cockerel getting his leg over or, in technical poultry parlance, 'treading' one of his hen harem.

This is very much the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am school of lovemaking (minus the perfunctory gratitude) and it can take place on, and for, an instant at any time of the day or night, and in the middle of any other on-going activity such as pecking, dust-bathing, preening or dozing. Permission is never requested of his partners - or expected.

Snowy's sexual etiquette certainly leaves much to be desired - but then he is a cockerel so there is little reason to accuse him of fowl play. Unfortunately he has now committed a much more serious offence: at the weekend he attacked a small child who had just arrived to spend a week at our holiday cottage, leaving him with a scratched forehead. We were mortified and, unless he can find a South American embassy to offer protection, Julian Snowy is now under sentence of coq au vin in the very near future.