Bisley farm shop chooks

We had a power cut this morning so that some work could be done on the power supply in our street. So I took the opportunity to have a coffee and a bacon roll at Waitrose before heading up to the top of the hill to visit the farm shop at Bisley.

It has rained all morning but it was only lightly drizzling by the time I got to the farm yard. I spotted a buzzard perched on stone wall at the edge of a field so I parked and then walked back with my camera. The air was very misty and had a grey pallor as I slowly approached. I set my camera for a possible bird flight and just as I raised it to focus on the far side of the field the buzzard took off flying a few feet off the ground towards a barn several fields away, on which it alighted. I got three frames but the bird was too small in the frame to be worth blipping.

On my way back to the barn in which the farm shop is located I had a quick look at the chickens and ducks in the chicken run where the young son of one of the owners of the shop rears rare breeds. They get fed lots of vegetables off-cuts that don't make it into the shop and today was no exception as Keith came to throw over the cabbage leaves he had been trimming from the crop.

I spotted this really pretty brown coloured chicken whose feathers were so well camouflaged against the backdrop of the fallen beech leaves from the tree which offers protection to the chicken run. they are proper free range chooks and live a very good life with lots of attention from young children who always get given seeds by the shop owners to give to the birds.

I was surprised when the little chook appeared and came up close to the chicken wire right next to its mother. I couldn't resist blipping the two of them. I am glad that the young one is allowed to grow with a family around it as well as a range of other chickens of various shapes, sizes and colours and a couple of ducks.

Before I left the shop, Sally, one of the family which owns the farm, showed me a calendar of photographs that a local woman has produced of images from the surrounding villages and landscapes. It was very good. I suggested that I could do one using just pictures of the farm, which I have been taking intermittently for the last few years. So I may knock one up and they might be prepared to sell it. Helena has often said that I should produce one of the local area, and this particularly appeals as I like the farm and its family so much.