Catch the pigeon, stop the goose.

 

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 again.  Plan B involved netting.  Geese are grazers and like to eat the grasses on the bank, they do not like netting.  Fortunately I had a shed full from an attempt to sausage dog proof the back garden, so I pegged it out.  It certainly kept them away from the area and after two days they seem to have reverted to their original routine of overnighting here.

We breathed a sigh of relief and decided to partake in a cheeseburger and a McFlurry in celebration, so Steve was dispatched to McDonalds.  He returned about half an hour later and told me we had a problem.  My first reaction was "The Mcflurry machine is down again isn't it?"  But it transpired one of the baby wood pigeons had fallen from its nest in next doors tree and landed, somewhat dazed and confused in the middle of our drive.

Poor little thing was shaking like a leaf.  I consulted google which said step 1: try and get it back in the nest.  We stood looking up and realised that with the best will in the world we weren't returning him 20ft up a conifer.    By now it was getting dusk and I was worried, if we left him he'd certainly by a snack within the hour, so I fetched a box, some bubble wrap to try and warm him up and popped him in a warm, dark corner of the kitchen whilst we decided what to do.

Several phone calls and lots of googling later I found an amazing lady who rescued all wildlife.  A quick conversation and she was happy to take him.  By now Ronald, so christened owing to him only being found as we fancied a McDonalds, had chirped up a little.  We took him to the rescue where he seemed quite happy.  The lady seemed to think he was days from fledging as 75% of his feathers were there, but she hoped a few days TLC would benefit and he could be released.

Everything crossed for little Ronald.  She did promise to update me on his progress. Never a dull moment here...

Comments

  1. Caroline MApril 6, 2021 at 8:23 AM

    The local city centre peregrines have a webcam, she's sitting now but shortly there will be a great number of orphaned pigeons. There is the occasional blackbird for breakfast but mostly it's pigeon. I'm pretty sure that they never know what hit them whereas Ronald would have been a cat plaything for far too long.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A Year On The PondApril 7, 2021 at 3:20 AM

      That was my concern. It's not a pleasant way to go via cat. Our main 'stalker' cat who belonged to a neighbour was sadly killed on the road just after Christmas, but there are still plenty of other's who'd make a plaything out of him.

      Anyway, the good news is Ronald is coming on in leaps and bounds and doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects from his adventures.

      Delete

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