Monthly Archives: March 2010

WHEN I lived in London, I was at a barbecue one summer’s evening with several other hungry hacks. As we tucked into the drumsticks and ribs in the back garden of their house, our host’s wife was taken urgently pregnant.

Although we all knew she was due before long, the effort of flipping burgers and reducing jumbo sausages to charcoal for a bunch of ravenous reporters had set off a process that had not been anticipated quite so soon.

We put down the brimming paper plates and trooped out to see her and hubby off in the ambulance before the rest of the family shooed us back in to resume feasting.

Back out through the patio doors we went, just in time to see a red fox disappearing through a gap in the hedge, carrying with it not just the plastic bag of buns but also as many drumsticks as would fit into its slobbery gob.

The thought that a slavering fox had been sniffing around our plates of nosh was enough to make everyone decide they had eaten quite enough of that, thank you very much.

Still, there was plenty tiramisu and trifle as well as the plonk to make up for the disappointment and to cheer on our absent hostess.

Sneaky raids by these famously cunning beasts are not a problem here in the islands, of course – until, perhaps, now. What is all this talk of foxes being spotted again in the very spooky area that is North Tolsta?

We don’t have foxes in the outer isles; there never have been any here and why would they take the ferry over now? But why, yet again, have there been more of these baffling reports of the red variety being seen here again?

This time, two people reckon they saw a young fox near Tolsta – and in two different places several miles apart.

At the moment, the fox sightings from the other Great Glen are running about one every four years. So where has this one, and mammy and daddy fox, been hiding since 2006? As there are no recurring panics about disappearing chickens or even bowls of dog food, could it be something else altogether?

What do I think? Well, I know that many island crofters were avidly watching Lambing Live on BBC2 all last week. George Gawk, for instance, fled the town because he is keen to put all the newfound skills he picked up from that Welsh farm to use.

Maybe the fast-moving nervous thing that was spotted darting through the heather was actually our George, on his way to give another sheep a helping hand? Just my theory.

I remember, after another predator got into our hen house in Bernera many years ago, the effect of the carnage on our family was severe and traumatic. The Department of Agriculture was called in, traps for the mink were laid and, because their sudden rarity had made the price of eggs rocket, dipping soldiers into boiled eggs became the stuff of distant memory.

Eventually, after several nighttime raiders were caught, my father sent for some more young chickens. So this fluttery box of 10 gog-gawgs duly arrived. They were welcomed with enough oatmeal and seed to feed an army, but nothing was too good for this brood of birds that was soon to bring eggy bread, omelettes and egg and chips back on to the menu in our house.

Young hens, or pullets, were always described as being point-of-lay. That gave the distinct impression that the first perfectly-formed oval delight was just being prepared, as it were. You were ordered to pick up the feathery bundle gingerly in case any sudden movement made anything pop out prematurely.

Yet, despite me galloping to their carefully-constructed nesting boxes each morning and groping wildly in the straw, there was nothing egg-shaped to be found. Instead, these feisty birds were on the roost, on the roof – anywhere but looking expectant in a broody, pre-natal squat.

The days became long weeks and it was evident our hens had begun to look like the cocky ones on the cornflakes packets. It dawned on us early one morning as they greeted the day noisily that we had about as much chance of getting eggs out of the cat.

If a hen lays about 300 eggs a year for five years, we should have expected 15,000 eggs from that box of pullets. Instead, we got 10 roast dinners. Ach, well.

So, while all newborn chicks may look tiny, fluffy and adorable, even at that stage it is vital to establish that all the bits you need are all in the right place. Which is why it was excellent to see an old schoolmate of mine who has become a renowned name in the world of sexing chickens.

I haven’t seen Michael Clinton much since we were both in Johnny Robbie’s science class. However, he has turned up in the headlines – as a groundbreaking scientist. It is quite obvious that he listened to the excitable Mr Robbie far more than I did. Dr Michael was once well known as a footballer round these parts. After being a star of Stornoway United, he is now doing something far less important as a top boffin at Edinburgh University’s Roslin Institute, the lab which created Dolly, that funny sheep.

He and his team have been trying to figure out the mystery which, I must admit, I have not recently devoted that much head-scratching time to – why some chickens hatch out half-male and some half-female. I mean, who knew that about one in every 10,000 chickens is gynandromorphous, to give that fascinating condition its right name?

See what you can learn by reading this column? Now I am bringing you findings from the latest cutting-edge research in the developmental biology of sexual differentiation.

That’ll teach the cynics who claim I am always going off half-cocked.