Greylags

Tags

gander, geese, goslings, greylags, nesting

Geese on the field behind our house in 2014

Geese in 2015

Geese in 2015

Those of you who have followed my blog for a year or more will know that we are visited in the springtime by Greylags (Anser anser).  These are wild (though the books say ‘feral’) geese who arrive in February and spend the first month or so wandering about the garden and the adjoining fields eating the grass (and the farmer’s barley and wheat) and generally making themselves at home.  Large family groups often stay a few hours with us before flying off somewhere else.  By the end of March nesting is their priority and fewer Greylags visit and when they do they stay for longer, looking for likely nesting sites or trying to take over the prime site on the island.

Greylags on the pond in March this year

Until four years ago the same pair of geese nested on the little island on our big pond and the last time they nested they produced seven goslings.  They stayed with us until the young geese had learnt to fly which was great fun to watch.  We were sorry to see them go but we got our garden back which was a relief.  And what a mess they left behind!

Greylags and Mallards under the bird-table.  Photo taken in 2014

The following year there was a week of fighting between ganders and at the end of it I believe the parents were eventually ousted from the nesting site on the island.  Other geese nested there, and on the edge of the pond, but no goslings hatched, or if they did they didn’t survive for long.  We had a couple of years of no goslings and then last year, the pair who have taken over the island had six goslings and I was able to photograph them.  The parents decided to take them off elsewhere after a few days so we didn’t see how they faired.

Greylags and their goslings last year

This year the goose began sitting a little later than usual, probably because of our cold spring and I am pleased to say that two weeks ago she successfully hatched ten goslings and they have all survived so far.

I took this photo when the goslings were just a few hours old

Greylags appear to pair for life and the gander is very protective of his goose and stays near her all the time she is incubating her eggs.  She leaves her nest twice a day to feed and the gander stands next to her while she eats very quickly.  He is also an extremely protective parent and guards his offspring and protects them from predators – and gardeners with wheelbarrows and anyone wanting to walk round the garden!

Goslings

The goslings after a week

The family group

Photo taken from the kitchen window a few days ago. The goslings have more than doubled in size and their wings are growing

The goose in front followed by ten goslings (the tenth is obscured by a leaf) and the gander is bringing up the rear.

I have filmed them (very badly!) and I finish this post with a video of them.  I used my new camera and I haven’t quite mastered filming yet!  For the second and third clips I should have zoomed in much closer and the first clip of them swimming has a lot of background noise for which I apologise.  As soon as I began filming some farm machinery started up.  I continued filming as I might not have had another chance and I have reduced the volume considerably on the video.  Living in the country is not as peaceful as you might imagine!  I will try to make another and better video of them soon.

Thanks for visiting!

Keswick and an Evening Walk

Tags

clouds, Derwent Water, flowers, geese, holiday, Keswick, Lake District

Our second day in the Lakes was cooler and rainier than the first.  Again, we left it until after midday before we left our cottage and this time went to the nearest town – Keswick.

Fortunately, the rain left off for the first part of the afternoon so walking round the town was fine.

An interesting alleyway in Keswick

I had never been to this town before and Richard hadn’t visited for many years.  I loved it!  It has lots of interesting shops and plenty going on but it isn’t as packed with tourists as Ambleside is.

We bought gifts from the shop below for my mother and our next-door neighbour (who watered our tomatoes) and also a jar of marmalade as Elinor wanted some. My blogging friend Rachel, formerly of ‘Could Do Worse’ visits the Lakes every year and when I saw this shop I thought of her.

The Chocolate Shop

Here is what Rachel had to say about it last year.  She did three or four great posts from the Lakes last year and you’ll find them just before and just after the post I’ve given you a link to.  She has recently started a new blog called The Patch Out Back – do give her a visit.

A pretty tree in the park.

After wandering round for a while, and Elinor sampling some of the best chips she had ever tasted from The Old Keswickian, we agreed we’d like to see the lake.  To get to Derwent Water from the centre of the town you walk through an underpass and alongside part of the town park which is where I took the above photo.

From the path we could see the fells that surround the town

Lots of very friendly Greylags and Canada Geese wait to be fed by anyone foolhardy enough to buy packets of goose-food from the shop.

This is Derwent Water

Derwent Water

As you can see, it was a very cloudy day.

The lake has four islands on it and one of them is just opposite the ferry landing stage near where we were standing.

The clouds began to drift lower and we knew it would rain again soon.

It was nice to watch people rowing on the lake

Fells near the lake

We found this lady and her Poodle most amusing.

She got to the shore-side and took the dog’s lead off and replaced it with a long rope.  The dog was very excited and was barking loudly and shrilly.  It galloped into the water and splashed about, snapping at the water (I can’t imagine how many pints of lake water it drank).  The woman was having to hold very tight on the end of the rope especially when the dog saw a large flotilla of geese come into view.

The geese remained out of reach, to the poodle’s disappointment.

I saw some attractive Bush Vetch (Vicia sepium) near the lake.

As it started to rain again we made our way back to the car and then drove back to the cottage.

After our evening meal, Richard and I went for a walk down the lane our cottage was in.

The first plant I saw was Greater Bird’s-foot Trefoil (Lotus pedunculatus)

The cloud was low and everything was very wet but the fine rain soon stopped.

Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare) was everywhere – (as it is here at home)

Marsh Thistle (Cirsium palustre) has smaller flower-heads and they are grouped together at the end of the stems. (A Spear Thistle is behind it)

Masses of Heath Bedstraw (Galium saxatile)

Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica)

Sneezewort’s name ptarmica comes from the Greek word ptarmos which, surprisingly, means ‘sneezing’.  The plant looks grey and in the bad light that evening the flowers seemed almost luminous.  The upper stems are downy and the flower-heads are made up of white ray florets and greenish-white disc florets (though in this photo they look grey).  The leaves, which are hot to the taste, used to be used in salads.  In the Middle Ages Sneezewort was used to alleviate toothache.  Sufferers held the roots in their mouths which helped the toothache by ‘evacuating the rheum’ according to Nicholas Culpeper.  I can’t imagine how sneezing would help anyone with bad toothache!  Culpeper recommends sneezewort for people with stuffy heads.  The powder of the herb was ‘stuffed up the nose..’ which caused sneezing and ‘cleanses the head’.  Explosive!

More low cloud

We walked almost to the end of the lane but as it was getting quite dark we turned round, retraced our steps and returned to our cottage.

Thanks for visiting!

 

Out Like a Lion!

Tags

blackthorn, daffodils, early dog-violets, flint boulder, gales, garden plans, geese, goose nest, greylags, hyacinths, mallards, March, muck spreading, primroses, scillas, starlings

In my post at the beginning of the month I wondered if March would go out like a lamb because it had come in like a lion.  Well – no – the month is going out as it came in, with gales!

I have just been outside and found my poor Hyacinths have been flattened!  These are Hyacinthus Delft Blue.

The Blackthorn tree (Prunus spinosa), just coming into flower, has been battered.

The flowers are being ripped off the trees by the wind.

Ten days ago the local farmer began muck-spreading and we have only just got rid of the smell!

More countryside joys!

We have had a small flock of Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) visiting our garden during the past week.

Despite my having put the ground feeder in a cage with extra chicken wire on two sides of it, the Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) seem determined to get to the bird seed.

The daffodils are coming out nicely around the garden.

The path round the pond is beginning to green up nicely.

The Early Dog-violets (Viola reichenbachiana) that grow in the grass-path round the pond are looking very pretty.

Early Dog-violet (Viola reichenbachiana)

The Primroses (Primula vulgaris) in the ditch are looking fine too. When we first came to live here there weren’t any primroses at all, only cowslips. These have appeared in the last couple of years.

The Greylag geese (Anser anser) often come up close to the house to see what food there is for them to eat.

I took advantage of their absence and had a look at the nest which has a few eggs in it. This was taken before the goose had finished laying her eggs and started sitting on the nest.

This is the garden on the south side of the house. Work in progress: I have cleared the beds of weeds and other unwanted seedlings and will cover them with soil-improver next.

The central grass path will be kept (there is a flowerbed just out of shot on the left) and I want to position a couple of arches over it and train roses and clematis up them.

This narrow area of grass is difficult to mow and will eventually be removed and replaced with a gravel bed and stepping-stones to give access to the windows, electricity meter and the drain.

The soil here is very poor; full of stones and builder’s rubble.  I am constantly finding very large flints just under the surface.  People in days gone by used to think that stones grew and I can understand why they might think that.

This is a flint boulder I dug up last week – the ruler is a 30 cm one.

I put a pot with a primula in next to the boulder to give you an idea of the size.

Blue Scillas

White Scillas

 

 

These Scillas are flowering in the flowerbed on the left of the grass path.  I have yet to weed here!

 

 

Thanks for visiting!

Before the Eclipse

Tags

daffodils, dotted border moth, ducks, early dog-violet, gardening, geese, greylags, hellebores, house sparrow, mallards, Mothering Sunday, Rip van Winkle daffodils, silver-lace primula, simnel cake, solar eclipse, Suffolk, viburnum bodnantense

Such a busy week I have had!

Some pretty, delicate daffodils growing at the top of the ditch-bank at the front of the house.

 

After a couple of problems were sorted out, Elinor’s week last week ended well.  She spent Friday in London with her Art class visiting The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Natural History Museum and the Saatchi Gallery and had a wonderful time.  She was able to rest as often as she needed to (she has scoliosis) and so therefore had hardly any back pain.  She travelled by coach and, as many of her colleagues had never been to London before, the driver took them on a route that passed by many of the sights – they drove along the Embankment so they saw the Thames, Cleopatra’s Needle with the two Sphinx, then the Tower of London and the 2012 Olympic Stadium among others.  I left her at the college at about 8.15 am and Richard collected her at 8.00 pm – so about twelve hours away from family – the longest time ever.  I spent the day ironing.

Silver-lace Primula

 

Some more of my new Hellebores have begun flowering.

I was able to do a little gardening on Saturday.  It was quite chilly but dry and I progressed quite well with the weeding I had started earlier in the week.  Richard gave the lawn another mow and over the weekend he was able to finish cutting the leylandii hedge.

The Viburnum Bodnantense is just coming into leaf.

I love these little Rip-van-Winkle daffodils.

It looks more like a miniature Chrysanthemum from this angle.

 

 

 

Sunday was Mothering Sunday and I had told Mum I would be taking her to church.  I collected her and helped her put the Simnel Cake she had made carefully into the car.  She had received a phone call from one of the ladies at church asking if she would be bringing a cake as usual and fortunately she had the ingredients ready in case they asked her.  I took an elderly retired priest back home after the service then took Mum home too.  I arranged with her that Richard would collect her at 6.00 pm as she was coming for a meal at our house.  It had to be an evening meal as I hadn’t time to cook lunch and drive to church.  I spent most of the afternoon preparing the food.  Mum provided an apple pie and another Simnel Cake for us.

This is the Simnel Cake Mum made for us last year. This year’s one looked the same so I’m reposting the photo

 

The temperature at the weekend was about 10 degrees C lower than the weekend before.  The easterly wind dragged such a lot of cloud and mist in off the North Sea but not very much rain.  I have had to water the pots and tubs as they are all drying out very quickly.  Today the wind was veering round to the North, so a change – but not necessarily for the better!

This is an Early Dog-violet (Viola reichenbachiana).   We have them growing on the grass path round the big pond. They are very small and the flower here was only just over an inch tall.

Here’s another one.

 

 

Richard travelled to Lancaster in Lancashire on Monday for work and continued there until Wednesday.  He is now staying with his brother in Manchester as he wanted to see him and his mother.  She has been assessed at last and to our complete surprise she has been told that she is fit to leave the respite home she has been in for three months and go home.  We know that she is not at all able to look after herself – she cannot stand up on her own anymore, let alone walk.  She would need 24 hour care and she would need her home adapting even more than it is at the moment.  Richard and his brother needed to discuss this new challenge together and with Mum-in-law.  They are also going to visit a couple of nursing homes to see if they are suitable for their mother to live in. They have spent the day at York, visiting the National Railway Museum.

This is the goose on a visit to her nest on the very brambly island on our pond. She has been laying eggs but hasn’t started sitting yet.

Here is the goose and gander up close to the house. They come to have a look to see what food they can find under the bird-tables. I am sure the goose, if not the gander, is one of the goslings from two years ago. She follows me round the garden as I fill the feeders so of course I give her and the gander some special duck and goose mixture I have .

The Mallards also come up close to the house looking for food.

They are enthusiastic eaters and rip up a lot of grass too.

 

 

 

 

I had an appointment at the opticians on Tuesday and yet again failed to do well enough in one of the tests and have to go back again next week.  Mum had another appointment at the eye clinic at Norwich hospital on Wednesday afternoon so I took her.  Her appointment went well and we go back again in six weeks.  I have done Mum’s shopping for her but it took three different trips.

A male House Sparrow in the crabapple tree.

 

Tomorrow morning we have a solar eclipse.  We will be lucky to see anything of it because of the cloud cover.  It may be possible to see it if the cloud thins early enough.  I remember the last total solar eclipse 16 years ago.  It was a bright, warm, sunny day and we all went out into the garden to witness it.  What I remember most about it were the strange shadows – each leaf had two shadows and as it got darker it was such a strange twilight with the dimming sun above us and not on the horizon.  As it got dark the birds stopped singing and the silence was eerie.  I wonder what I will see tomorrow at 9.30 am?  I will be just arriving home from taking Elinor to college.

This is a Dotted Border Moth (Agriopis marginaria) that I saw on the outside of my kitchen window. The strange white light is a reflection of my flash in the double-glazing.

 

Elinor has been invited to a party.  One of her old school friends is holding an 18th birthday party tomorrow and Elinor thinks she would like to go.  She may need collecting early but it will be so good for her even to go for a short time.

Thank-you for visiting!

A Quiet Week

Tags

barn owl, bracket fungus, cut flowers, daffodils, garden, geese, greylags, liquid manure, primroses, snowdrops, Suffolk, tulips, winter aconites

We haven’t done anything special this week – just kept quite busy doing ordinary things.  This post will be made up of a few photos of some of the things I have seen in the past few days.

I bought these tulips on Monday. I love the mixture of bright colours.  They are also scented.

I hardly ever buy flowers for the house and the only flowers I bring indoors from the garden are poor damaged blooms that have been knocked over by wind, rain or visiting wildlife.

I love flowers so I am not sure why I don’t have them in the house often.  I know I can’t arrange flowers so that may have something to do with it.  I also feel sorry for them – I love to see them outside where they belong and think it’s a shame to cut them.  Amusingly, whenever Alice sees a vase of flowers she thinks Richard and I have had an argument.  Sometimes we have and sometimes we haven’t.

I saw this bracket fungus on a willow log in the garden.

My Hellebores have just begun to flower.

A tub full of Tete-a-tete daffodils.

These tiny little daffodils are only about 4″ high and grow under the Winter-flowering Honeysuckle.

I found a few more aconites in a gravelly area. Gravel must be where they like to grow. I must pull those weeds up!

The joys of living in the country! Fortunately the wind was blowing the heady aroma away from me. I had a line of washing hanging out on Tuesday as it was warm and sunny and a breeze was blowing. I had to take it indoors quickly once I saw what was happening.

The Greylags are back in our garden and the field behind the house. This is the gander.

And this is the goose.  You can only just see her.

Fifteen geese turned up on Thursday morning. Here are most of them. The geese return each year at the end of February and often there is a day or so of arguments as to who should nest on the little island on our pond. I didn’t notice anything this year but that may be because I am away from the house a lot more.

I got closer to these few. Once the goose starts sitting on her eggs the extended family call in to visit now and then. Her gander stays with her all the time and I am sure gets very bored wandering about on his own. He is very protective of his goose. For the last two years there have been no goslings which I find very sad. They may be laying infertile eggs or ‘something ‘ may be taking the young when first hatched. We have grass snakes and I have seen an otter on the pond, but not recently. Last year I witnessed a Moorhen chick being dragged underwater by something. My brother suggests that it could be a turtle. Someone unscrupulous may have disposed of it into our pond. I haven’t seen any other evidence of a turtle so far. Neighbours say they have seen a mink which they believe has taken all their ducklings.  That seems more likely as a culprit.

I have a film I shot of the former pair of geese with their goslings swimming on the pond.  When I work out how to put it on U-Tube and then transfer it back to WordPress you will see how lovely they are.  I have also recorded a short film at dusk with the song of a Song Thrush and a Tawny Owl hooting.  I will try to post that too one day.

This is one of the two Barn Owls we see regularly.

They are also known as screech owls as their call is not a hoot but a screech.

They look like giant moths when they fly. Their heads are very large.

Primroses and Snowdrops in the ditch between us and the old schoolhouse.

Thank-you for visiting!

Apologies

Tags

geese, mallards, marriage etc, moorhens, rooks

I feel I must apologise for last night’s sentimental outburst. There is no real excuse for it, but the night was so lovely, and, a little bit of soppiness (within reason, of course) never did anyone any harm – yet.

Not much to report so far today.  The day started cold and frosty with ice on the ponds.  This quickly disappeared as the wind got up and it is now raining hard – again.

The rooks have started fiddling about with their old nests in the rookery.  Mark Cocker in his book ‘Crow Country’ says that they dismantle the nests each year and start again.  I am not sure about that, though I am no expert.  The rooks pair for life but they still feel the need to court each other again each year – bowing and nodding and lifting the feathers on the back of their necks.  Human couples, in the main, don’t seem to continue to woo each other after they have decided to get married/live together.  Perhaps they should (I don’t mean bowing and nodding etc. – they’d get funny looks from passers-by) but perhaps try to remember what it was that attracted them about their partner in the beginning/make an effort to listen to each other or spend more time together/try not to take each other for granted – I’m sure you can think of lots more.  (What has got into me?! It must be Valentine’s Day!)  R and I decided some years ago to forego sending each other cards and giving presents on this day (at my instigation if I remember rightly) and what a relief it was not to have to sort through hundreds of simply awful cards trying to find something appropriate to us and our marriage.  We ended up with cards with no message and scenic views or gardens or flowers on the front and then wrote our own rather restrained messages.  I’m not usually a sentimental person (last night was an aberration) and I found it an uncomfortable experience.  It all seemed very silly.  As a girl I would have loved to have received a card from an unknown admirer but as a middle-aged woman….. No, ridiculous!

The geese don’t have the big pond to themselves any more.  The moorhens are very busy, paddling about doing moorhenny things and a group of five male mallards have arrived.  They are stalking one lone female – waiting for their chance!

Lunch break over – I must get back to the ironing and then I’m off to Diss to pick A up from the station.  She is coming home for a long weekend and I am looking forward to it very much.