So, Honka and Tonka, our resident native hens have finally got four chicks. Tonka, the female, has been "missing" for almost a month. I knew she was still around, because they have this shared male: "honk" female: "tonk" duck call, which sounds like a duck version of a mewling donkey: aka, "see-saw". Parks and Wildlife indicate that the Tasmanian native is the Gallinula mortierii the distant relative of our domesticated hen, but I do have to wonder if any of the parks and wildlife people have spent much time watching the so-called hens. Chickens tend not to mate for life, and one rooster will service a number of chickens. Ducks mate for life with one partner. Although, it is indicated by P&W that some native hens are polygamous - one female to a number of males. Quite interesting really.

Apparently it is an offence to possess a native hen... but what if a family of native hens have taken possession of your property? :-P Do they get arrested?

And pffft. P&W indicate that native hens only feed at dawn and dusk on grasses and seeds, but Honka and Tonka are around our property all day, from the moment our surviving horse Ash is fed in the morning, to the moment Ash is fed at night. Ash and the native hens have a bond - from the beginning they tended to hang around him during the day, and especially during feed times so that they could obtain his apparently tasty pellets, ignoring his lucerne chaff, which he would drop during feed time. Ash, being a grumpy old man, has made the two native hens a bit wary of him now - where once they ate out of his food bins, now they dash in and out of his legs. He gets a bit frustrated and grumpy just before feed time, where he stalks up and down the fence, with his ears down, attacking his feed bin if it isn't filled quickly enough.

During the day, Honka has also been inside our house on one occasion, to which our old golden retriever didn't care. Those two native hens are not particularly afraid of anything - Honka will run over to my cat when I take him for a walk outside. My cat will crouch down and talk to Honka, and Honka will squark/squawk and run over to check out the new animal "in-the-hood". Alas, after just a moment they lose interest in one another, because Honka and Tonka and my two cats often spend time together - my cats inside their grassy cat-run, the hens outside in the grass next to it. My cats are also friends with the local possums who are quite friendly.

Anyway, back to the new chicks of the hens. The female, Tonka, has been missing for a while now, but I knew she would be sitting on her eggs as I would see the male, Honka, run down the paddock towards the forested area surrounding the dam. She would often meet him, performing their "see-haw" duck-sounding duo and dance. I have seen "chariots of fire" type reunions of those two native hens that are very adorable to watch. This morning, Dad was walking with Skye, and noticed Honka, the male, doing a bit of a dance and making a strange clicking sound. Honka then took off pretending to be injured (aka, squatting to the ground and "dragging" himself along the ground away from a small bush. He would then flap his wings and make a sound that attracted even Skye to run after him). Dad then noticed Tonka, squatting in a bush clicking at four young chicks were hidden behind her, but she was facing away from Dad - worried only about Skye. The native hens eat within 1 metre of Dad when he is outside mending the fences - they are completely at ease, even when he is using the jack-hammer or hammering a fence loudly - weird!) Skye normally doesn't worry about the native hens, but Honka was making such pandemonium that she trotted over (she is very old) to see what was going on. Anyway, the tiny chicks must have only hatched yesterday. I saw them later on, and Honka did the same clicking and "limping" away thing for me, whilst Tonka guided the chicks quickly amongst some very tall grass Ash refuses to eat. When I would disappear, the two hens would do their normal emu-type throaty/swallowing "ghh" sound. Then if I poked my head up above the bushes, they'd click again. I should've been a zoologist. ;-)

The fact that Tonka, the female, was sitting on her eggs also explains why Honka, the male, ran so aggressively at a wandering native hen a few days ago - he chased that other hen right off the property. Also note that we never had resident native hens until one day in March when we saw about 30 native hens running up the hillside nearby our house. Two hens came to us, and the other hens dispersed to other areas, the boundaries of which we are not quite sure of. It is as if the native hens that are so abundant on the lawns where Mum works, decided to follow her home one day. ;-) Our two native hens are rather late to the season, with the native hens at Mum's work having hatchlings this season which are now almost as large as the parents.

Labels: animals, around the property, chicks, ducks, fluffy, honka, honka and tonka, native fauna, native hens, on the farm, Tasmania, tonka