This is Milly, otherwise known as top dog chicken. She rules our roost with a rod of iron and a razor-sharp beak. She’s old now (around eight or nine years old) but she still keeps the other hens in check and she still lays an egg a couple of times a week. In return for one of her lovely fresh, speckled brown eggs, we feed her and protect her from foxes. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.

She keeps the pecking order intact and makes sure that Terri knows she’s right at the bottom of it and must comply with Milly’s wishes at all times. When Terri forgets this simple rule she gets her feathers plucked from her head and has, on more than one occasion, been seriously wounded for her misdemeanours.

Once, we let our guard down a wee bit and a wily fox came into the run in the middle of the night, killed one of our hens and (so we thought) took out Milly’s eye before we’d had the chance to make it from our bedroom to rescue them. After a week or so, her eye suddenly popped open again – it was just bruised, not gone. Hurrah.

Today they have been scouring our patio, looking for exciting morsels and treats because they don’t usually come into this part of the garden. They are hilarious, as soon as the gate is open, they are looking for an opportunity to sneak in and make free with the delicacies to be had there.

Even though this isn’t the best shot I’ve ever done of one of the hens….and in fact, David gets the best shots of them usually, it makes today’s cut for one reason alone – comfort. The comfort of our little critters when we are in a state of flux and turmoil is, well, comforting. Somehow, in these circumstances, watching them go about their business is the best comfort imaginable.

I’ve returned to my theme of simple pleasures on many occasions and this is one of them. Watching the hens scrabble about looking for juicy morsels is a real joy. I must confess to being completely terrified about what happens if bird flu comes here….which we are told is a certainty, it’s just a question of when.