Chicken Tonight

Today I've been thinking about chickens.

In the UK there are two places you find them: the supermarket and the farmyard. In Bermuda they seem to be everywhere.

As we drove back to St. George's from the tennis yesterday we passed a brood of fine-looking cockerels scratching by the side of the road near Grotto Bay. A flock of them hang out at the driving range of the Ocean View Golf Course, sometimes straying perilously close to the tees. A peep can usually be found on the junction of Harrington Sound Road and Paynters Road, on the edge of Castle Harbour Golf Course (what's with the affinity for golf?).

I can't decide whether wild chickens should be as unremarkable as kiskadees or cockroaches, or whether they bring a somewhat third world ambiance to the Island and would be better rounded up and made into a nice curry.

Comments

[Nitjanirasu on 26.04.04 at 22:15]

And with spring comes breeding season...be especially careful down Spital Pond,some of the mother hens were being especially vicious last time we visited.

[Eric on 27.04.04 at 00:39]

I would suspect that chickens appear to like golf courses for one of the following reasons (or perhaps some combination):
1) you can actually see them there since there are wide open fairways instead of more cluttered areas of the island with houses, walls, trees, and bushes

2) the golf courses are one of the main areas on the island that aren't covered in houses, meaning that there is more space for them to do their chicken thing as well as fewer threats (cars, bikes, people, cats, dogs, etc).

3) seed. I am certainly no expert on what wild chickens prefer to eat, but a golf course is routinely seeded with a few different types of grass seeds throughout the year, there is fresh water sprayed over it regularly (cooling and for drinking - in the eyes of a chicken that is) and there is plenty of cover in the trees along the rough of courses so that they can raise their little ones when not out grazing on the seeds (me being the "fantastic" golfer that I am would have much experience at Ocean View and the chickens that live at the base of the trees).

There are several roosters in my neighborhood that were hard to adjust to when I first got here. Now I don't even notice them until friends come over and make comments about them.
I was all for killing them when they were waking me up at 5am, but now since I don't hear them that often and when I do see them they tend to be the cute little peep fluffballs, I am vaguely ambivalent about them.
That said, if they start to get on our roof and pooping, I am going to be all for killing every single last one of them those salmonella carrying little....

[Kristen Sousa on 27.04.04 at 15:19]

...you forgot about the Ducks and their adorable lil' ducklings...

..and while we're on the subject -- they really should do something about the pigeons at the bus terminal in town.

[Bill Akin on 27.04.04 at 20:14]

Lots of people pay over the odds for "free range" chickens and eggs. Looks to me that you are tripping over free food.
Regards, Bill

[Yet Another Limey on 28.10.05 at 17:04]

Have any restaurants tried selling the tourists 'wild chicken'? After all people pay more for wild mushrooms and wild rice. ;)

[Nicolette on 28.10.05 at 17:22]

They're the famous feral chickens - the ultimate in free range... not a bit of tension/fear in the meat 'cause they have no brains...