Windblown Partridges

Fugitives

Further damage from the storm has included the escape of almost my entire breeding stock of partridges. As I type this, there is almost a constant cacophony of skreiking and growling coming from the garden, where the fugitives are mingling with the hens and picking small fights with one another. I am trying to catch them up again, but have to work piecemeal as the only opportunity I get is after dark, when they jug together under the ruins of a honeysuckle bush. Bit by bit I am getting my breeding stock back again, but each frantic nocturnal engagement with a kiddy’s shrimping net is proving to be more tiresome than the last…