January10

Sunday, 31st Big RSPB Birdwatch Weekend

The last day in January, and I thought I'd better finish January off quick with an entry and some photographs.

Yesterday and today the ice cover was back on the ponds; John did the ice bashing yesterday and I was glad he had done or I would have had trouble breaking it this morning. The little pond was worse, as ever, but on the big pond the ice layer was no more than 7mm thick, quite easy to break. The temperatures did rise during the day though, and as you can see in the photos the ice on the pond had nearly gone about quarter past three this afternoon.

Although neither we nor the ducks welcome the ice, there's one good thing about it: the ducks go into their huts at bed time without protest. It's quite comical the way the 7 in particular skirt round the frozen little pond and march straight up the ramp into the hut in single file. Last week they kicked up a lot and had to be prompted time and again to come out of the water and go to bed. As the days have been drawing out nicely it gets dark a little after 5 these days, depending on the weather.

There's one thing friend Graham and I are disappointed about this month, there have been no eggs so far. Last year Hedda presented us with her first on 21st January.

Well, as I said, last chance to put in some January photos. I went down to the big pond just after 3 with the camera and they came out of the water at once. Has she brought us some pasta, they wondered:

No, she hadn't - but she had brought them some iceberg lettuce:

Our little feathered friends are looking well, I think, especially with a bit of sunshine on their backs:

Somebody cried "alarm!" just then, and Hedda was trying to fly to get back into the pond with the others:

It's not just the sunshine today [and yesterday!] that made me look forward to Spring, the chestnut is developing lots of sticky buds:

The little squabbles and confrontations are continuing, especially among the girls - here's Decibels getting out of the way quick to judge by the wake behind her, and squaring up to Hedda in the photo below this one:

But they do have most of the pond open again now, and I've never noticed any injuries resulting from their fights - just a few plucked feathers fly throught the air:

Tuesday, 19th

I should have gone down to the duck pond yesterday morning to take photos of the thick ice still floating there. Today is a very, very grey day, and the ice floe which was a good 5cm thick in places is but a shadow of its former self today:

The ducks don't mind that it's disappearing, they got nearly all their pond back again. One 'person' is missing from these two ducky photos above, have you noticed? It is big Hedda who had gone to see if there were any of the wheat grains left I'd thrown down for them...

There are still large chunks on the small pond because it has had little use, but I'm sure they'll be melted soon as well. From the weather maps it looks as if the snow forecast for tomorrow might not reach us, but look out Gerd and Annie!

The mole has been having a super active time recently, some of the hills are an unbelievable size:

Monday, 18th

Lovely sunshine this morning - yesterday as well when we had Val's parents visiting - and the snow is just a distant memory, how quickly we forget ............... but the forecast says more snow on Wednesday, oh dear!

We had about three days of heavy rain and we could watch the snow disappearing in front of our eyes:

No ducks in this photo, just one of the pheasants in front of the garage doors.....

.....and the waterhen that's been making the rounds every morning for about a week now.

Near the ditch top right of this photo the snow had gone entirely on Thursday afternoon, and it must have been the same in the field behind the duck hut as I could see a constant stream of ducks going to or coming from there. The food situation improved instantly, too. Because they - and their normal "visitors" could find lots of stuff to eat in and under the grass there was quite a bit left in their food container at night.

These two shots were taken Friday morning, I think, just before going down to let the ducks out. The "regular" waterhen can be seen near the two-stemmed birch.

So, as I said, lovely sunshine this Monday morning which we can enjoy until the next bout of snow.

The ice floes on both ponds the ducks use are still thick enough for them to stand on, in fact in half the big pond, where we haven't broken up the ice for some days, it measures 5 - 6 cm still! I shall go down and take a photo of it to show, but for now just a zoomed in shot of the duck pond:

Thursday, 14th January

For the last couple of days the temperatures have been rising, and no ice bashing was required.

The food situation is still the same, by lunchtime the four scoops of wheat have gone - in summer half that amount would have lasted them all day with some left over. I have added chopped greens, carrots and garlic to their grain, and occasionally a few bits of iceberg lettuce and minced beef. How much of all that they get down them I can only guess with the amount of feathered thieves partaking of the ducks' food. All ducks appear well although they are well and truly fed up with the snow and restricted swimming space. However, it can't last forever [famous last words?]!

There are all sorts of tracks to be seen in the snow covering the garden by now, not all of them of us or the ducks, but somebody took a little detour here on their way to the big pond.

Most of the ducks in this photo are looking towards where their food thieves have disappeared to, apart from Anabelle and Decibels [on the very left of the group standing] who seem to be discussing tactics as to what to do about it.

I could see two of them only from the house in this photo, as well as 7 of the ducks - or bits of them....

Friday, 8th January 2010

The frozen ponds are giving us problems, it took a huge effort from both of us this morning to make a hole big enough for the 7 to land in, but they're wise to the problem now - walked right round the edge ignoring the water hole and went straight to the big duck pond .... where John had done some ice bashing earlier. But even there the ice was thicker than ever before and the 11 ducks had just a small area to paddle and be ill-tempered-with-each-other in.

2 days ago, after the mornings' snowfall, the sun came out and everything looked so lovely I went out and took 50 photos! Here's a selection - note the watchers behind the fence in a couple of the duck photos.

Sunday, 3rd January 2010

A new year, a new beginning in the duck diaries, but the ducks carry on the same as last year with short-tempered fights in the restricted area of open water in the big pond and their myriad visitors stealing their food.

The weather has been playing silly. Yesterday morning both John and I did tandem smashing of ice on the ponds and lugging bucket after bucket of water down there. Then the sun came out and in the afternoon it looked like it was about to snow; then it rained and everything thawed. Overnight we had a smattering of snow and then everything froze again big time.

I'm mixing green vegetables into the duck food occasionally along with carrots, garlic and sometime pasta and rice. I must try them with a bit of minced beef again as they can't find any slugs or worms at present, but they were not keen on that last winter ....... creatures of habit!