January07
Thursday, 4th January 2007
So we've started a new year already. Isn't it frightening how quickly the seasons seem to come and go?
Hope you all had a great festive season and are now full of vim and vigour for 2007. Myself I've had a bit of a slow start as a nasty sore throat/cold bug kept me indoors for days with John looking after the ducks. Have re-surfaced now although the cold hasn't left me yet.
All the ducks seem in fine fettle, they're busy all day creating new mud puddles helped by the usually miserable rainy weather.
Circle, after dithering this way and that, appears to have settled back in with the garage crowd at night, for the moment, anyway.
And for the first time in what must be over 2 weeks now all 17 came to the flower beds outside the garage this afternoon. That's the closest they've been to the house all this time, not once to the frog pond or the front lawn as they used to. I think I know the reason: they're being constantly "visited" by whole flocks of young pheasants - in addition to the normal intruders like rabbits and other birds. I've seen loads of them perching on fence posts and on the logs behind the duck pond all through the days while the drakes make a big show rising and splashing in the water to try and frighten them off. I bet the ducks feel they need to defend their territory and food supply, and so they don't come to raid the trough behind the garage until the afternoons when the duck pond one has been emptied.
I thought I'd try out Carl's gift of my second digital camera today when
the ducks came near the birch with the bird food, but as you can see I
made a right mess of it; first through the window -
- and then just catching the tail-enders after I opened the window:
I'll practise some more, promise!
Saturday, 13th January 2007
The 4 lots of peanuts in their shells which I threaded up so laboriously when I was feeling poorly [ you can maybe just make them out hanging in the birch in the 2 photos above] have all been pinched by squirrels. I'd love to see where they stash all that loot. The little tykes must be very strong, I mean last year they carried away a fatball complete with the CD which had been tied above it in the hope of trying to prevent the little varmint from getting at the birds' fatball!
I'm still struggling to get to grips with the new camera, so I took the 2 pics above with the one I'm used to just to show you the re-positioned fence. With all those deluges we've had the ground was being turned into quagmires everywhere, especially in the area where we had the gate - right in front in the photo on the right. To make matters worse a mole had been very active there, and with the ducks trafficking up and down that slope a river of mud had been created. It doesn't look quite that bad now with the grass starting to grow through it again, but I can assure you it was horrendous.
The gate is now at the bottom end of our wild flower patch near the lower end of the orchard [photo on the left]. Yes, it did confuse the ducks for a bit and I had to guide them to the new opening in the fence, but even the next morning the top lot, having turned left as usual out of the enclosure, stopped, remembered, and poured downhill to the new gate. They're not as daft as they look!
Wednesday, 24th January 2007 [Angelika's birthday yesterday]
We've had the first snow overnight!
Not an awful lot, just making it look nice I think. Don't the two owls
look as if somebody had forgotten to rinse off the foam after a shampooing?
The ducks are not too thrilled with it. I didn't break up the ice on
the ponds this morning like I did for them yesterday, but then it was
more like slush with the snow on top. Still they didn't like it and stuck
to the little area of water they first crashed into:
The photos today were all taken with the "new" unfamiliar camera.
They're much better, I think, but I still have a lot to learn.
When I got back to the house I thought I could see the ducks chase off
some of those dozens of pilfering pheasant that come every day. Took these
two shots from the upstairs window but can only spot 2 cock pheasants
and 1 female where I've put the arrows:
Sunday, 28th January 2007
Had a bit of a to-do with Anabelle tonight.
When I went down at quarter to 5 to shut them in for the night all 17 were on the duck pond, but they separated out nicely into the two groups. Circle has still been vascillating recently between the two huts, but tonight I saw her go off with the top lot. Having shut the bottom eight (I thought) in I suddenly saw Florrie come quacking up and looking very agitated. On looking closer I realized it wasn't Florrie at all but Anabelle - well, they DO look similar, especially in the dim light.
I shooed her up the hill thinking she'd bed down with the others like Circle does. Oh, no, she wouldn't. I assure you I was very, very patient for ages as she circled the hut again and again. Now and again she jumped on the ramp but never took the final 3 steps into the hut. As the other nine had settled down for the night I closed the hatch and decided to catch Anabelle and put her into her own hut manually. What a job that was! Talk about ducking and weaving ...... by golly, she was quick. I eventually got her trapped under the ramp coming out from the old chicken coop. Once I'd got her she resigned herself to her fate and kept quite still. But we got noisy protests when I opened the duck pond hut again to let her join the seven.
Tuesday, 30th January 2007
Anabelle was fine yesterday morning after her adventure the night before, and I noticed she made no attempt at all to go up with the top crowd last night.