A Year On The Pond

  Our cute little ducklings are now gangly, half plucked, rampaging teenagers!  They do nothing but eat, sleep and go on occasional riots across the water.  They are so big now, not far from Egwina size and it's sometimes difficult at a glance to spot her amongst them. Funny things juvenile ducks, their initial feathers will all look exactly like mum, so it's incredibly tricky to tell who's male and who is female at this stage.  There is a school of thought that you can hazard a reasonably accurate guess from the line that crosses the eye.  The thicker the line then it's male.  It's a great theory, but anyone who's tried to keep 13 ducklings in one place for long enough to study their eye pattern will know it's flawed.    Over the summer months the male will lose his beautiful colours and look exactly like a female.  For a while he will also look like someone needs to call the RSPB because he just looks like he's had a rough night up the loca...

I've always fancied a pair of those concrete lions on the gateposts, this doesn't quite have the same effect I feel.... Here we are coming up for week 3 I think and the ducklings are growing like weeds.  We have 14 now having lost two.  We almost lost three after a rather traumatic run in with a cat who grabbed one as I went out to feed them.  I screamed, it ran and we assumed duckling had died.  Transpired the little guy had made his escape when I screamed and plopped back in the pond, meanwhile us and several other neighbours were scouring gardens looking for him. Anyway, it's fair to say this clutch are utterly bonkers.  Previous ducklings have stayed pretty close to Egwina's side for safety, and thats exactly what a little duck should do.  This lot love nothing more than to scatter to every side of the pond leaving mum in the middle quacking loudly trying to regroup them.  They are everywhere and seemingly have no fear at all. Our goose problem see...

  It's been a difficult week.  Our disruptive geese have shown absolutely no sign of leaving and as the days have worn on they have become increasingly problematic.  Not only did they start to become incredibly territorial they had begun to take their anger out on Egwina and the babies.   This sadly resulted in us losing one of the ducklings. We'd said from the start that our little pond couldn't really support geese and their goslings should they nest.  The levels of destruction were getting to the point where I was worried that the grasses wouldn't recover and our wildlife detrimentally affected for the summer months.  It was time for action. There is a fascinating article on line entitled 15 tips to get rid of geese.  Believe me when I say we have tried every single one.  Most of them twice.  Roping off the pond with shiny Christmas ribbon was a success at keeping them off the banks for around a day, at which point they get used ...

  I’ve become utterly fascinated lately with a tv show called  R iver Hunters.  It's been out for a while but I'm never on top of what's on the telly....  I suspect my fascination for it stems from a failed childhood ambition to become an archaeologist.   The basic premise of River Hunters is that over the years we have searched battle sites and castle grounds with metal detectors, but never the rivers and lakes on which they sit.  It's a wonderful show, although the amount of modern rubbish they pull out is rather maddening. Anyway, as we’ve not got out much lately, Steve and I purchased a waterproof metal detector to see what if anything was around the pond.   As I've said before we know the pond has been here many hundreds of years, is there anything in it?  Whilst we can't get into the depths we can look at the banks and the shallow edges! We had a quick outing with it tonight and immediately it started to squeak. The excitement was ...

  Saturday morning I decided to make the most of the sunshine and put in the wildflower bed I'd been procrastinating over for some time. As I was digging I glanced up at the duck house and saw a tiny, fuzzy bundle in the doorway.  As the morning wore on more little bleary eyed ducklings made their way into the water and we counted 12 by evening. The following morning Steve came darting into the bedroom (he's always up first) proclaiming "THERE IS BLOODY SIXTEEN!"  Convinced he'd miscounted I went outside and snapped a photo, generally the best way to count ducks as they never keep still, and he was right, sixteen. This clutch seem to be rather different than previous ones.  They are feisty and exceptionally brave.  Happy to be on the other side of the pond from Egwina, and yesterday they followed me as I painted the garden fences.  At one point I had to stop to remove one who was sat on my boot and usher them all back to the water. ...

  Most of the bank holiday weekend has been spent keenly watching the geese and trying to dissuade them from nesting.  My last post seemed to jinx it and whilst they showed no signs of nesting previously this weekend they have really ramped things up. First signs appeared on duck island.  I noticed the female piling grass ready to form a nest.  We hastily pulled in duck island.  The following day she started again along the side of the pond.  This was causing problems for a couple of reasons, one, it would block off the main route down to the pier and two, the levels of destruction from them had really increased quite dramatically.  The lily pads were being torn out, the natural grasses around the edge that are a haven for dragon flies and crane flies were torn down.    It was time for disuassion. Plan A involved playing goose flight sounds in the hope they'd just go.  It worked. For about 5 minutes when they returned agai...