What's That You Said?

Now I'm not trying to be Dr Doolittle here but I really am getting to understand what the different barks/clucks/bleats from my girls all mean.
This morning for instance Polly woke up at 6am and instead of her usual call for attention it was a soft "I'm awake" type noise.  It wasn't until 7am (what bliss) that she made her "MMUUMMM" shout.  Once fed it was just one satisfied bleat and then later on today when she's munching her way round the garden it'll be a sort of mumble like she's talking to herself.

The chooks have their morning coos and thankfully that's all I get to hear now as they have an automatic feeder.  Before that it was loud "feed me now" squawks.  They have an alert call when they're all free ranging and one of them senses danger, there's the "I'm preparing to lay / have just laid an egg" noise, and when they're sitting in my lap about to go to sleep its a wonderfully contented purr.  Nesting is a whole different matter and it's a propper clucking sound,  must be where the phrase clucky comes from.  I'm just off out now to check on them and again it'll be a different cluck - they'll all be stomping up and down as close to the gate as they can get looking like prisoners of war - excitement brewing as they all make a bid for freedom.

Buffy on the other hand isn't a morning dog (anyone whose looked after her will tell you).  She's been up twice on fox watch (with a barking frenzy in attack mode) and now there's a faint snore coming from her while she rests under the duvet.  While I'm learning to understand what the other girls are saying to me they aren't interested in the art of conversation - just food and cuddles.  Buffy though listens intently tilting her head to one side while I chat, then she looks me straight in the eye as her head goes to the other side.

There's the difference you see.  I'm just mum to the chooks and Polly whereas Buffy's my friend.  She has a large vocabulary from excited barks to anxious yelps and  then there's always the whinging when doesn't get what she wants.  We genuinely can communicate with eachother.