July07

Sunday, 1st

I'm pleased to report that even yesterday, one day after I was worried about Primmie's severe limp, she was hardly limping at all; walked and ran almost normally. She must have only just done the damage and been in pain when I first saw her predicament on Friday.

The endless-seeming rain had stopped this afternoon, and I thought I'd stop and lie low to catch the waterhen chicks on camera after giving the ducks their spaghetti. I saw a grown-up and 4 babies - 2 larger than the other 2 - running away as I approached. So I spent about half an hour lying flat on my belly keeping still, waiting for them to come back, but all I could see now and again was a head popping up, at the foot of this dark tree trunk [you can barely see it on the larger picture, so I've put in an enlarged insert], to check if I was still there:

I gave up after that, but I did manage a couple of nice shots of the Campbells and Captain - he's almost come through his moult now, I notice.

Thursday, 5th July 2007

Primmie's done it again - or somebody did it to her - only worse. She could barely flap along on her belly last night.The situation improved a little bit during the day, but she won't be moving well for a few days yet.

An amazing thing happened, the sun came out this morning, and so did the waterhen chicks!

I was doing some weeding in the "wild" border at no great distance from the pond, and I noticed after a short time that mum and the chicks had come out of hiding and didn't seem to feel threatened by me - well, I did keep as low down as I could. They were swimming and sunning themselves, first with mum and then on their own when she went into the field.I just had to go back to the house to fetch the camera, and then took 27 photos!

I didn't manage to catch them swimming, but I'm pleased with lots of the shots. Hope you like to see photos in here because I want to put in about 7! I first saw one chick lying at the foot of the flags in the bog garden.

Incidentally, there's a little track from there, about 4 inches wide, leading to the ducks' food trough. I must take a photo of it tomorrow; I've no doubt the waterhens have made it. [photo below taken Sunday,8.7.07]

This little chick soon got up and joined the other three who had come out from behind the logs:

They're not so little now, are they, proper teenagers. And look what long legs they have!

They're totally unfazed by the ducks - and drake - I bet they're swimming together as well, I just haven't seen it yet. Here they are watching Captain taking a dive:

And on this picture below Hedda is doing unspeakable things to one of the other Campbells. As the biggest among them she appears to have taken over the role of the fox-nabbed Clarence!

Well, it was a very sunny and peaceful morning,
but the afternoon spoilt it - it was chucking it down with rain. Will there come a time this year when we'll be praying for rain again?

Sunday, 8th July 2007

Tried to catch the waterhen chicks this morning before letting the ducks out, but I only saw one, and that spotted me very quickly and scarpered as illustrated in this sequence:

And then I had another experience which made me smile. While I was preparing lunch I saw this blackbird,

and it spent a good ten minutes or so practically twisting itself in half while trying to reach something that was bothering it underneath its tail. I don't know if it ever got whatever it was, but it did look funny.

Wednesday, 11th July 2007

Poor Chissit's dead. I'm fond of all our ducks and drakes, but I got very attached to her while trying to nurse her through that awful eye business.

I first noticed on Saturday afternoon that she was keeping herself away from the others. She was settled opposite to where I was doing some weeding, and I thought she was going to lay. I tossed her the odd worm and she took them, too.

Didn't see much of Chissit on Sunday, but when Graham and Pat were visiting Saturday afternoon she was on the pond separate from the others, and again yesterday morning. She didn't get off the pond when the others went foraging into the field, and she was still there in the afternoon when John and I were doing some pond maintenance. I'd been worried about her all along, but when I saw her later in the afternoon when she'd crept under a bush looking very poorly, I was reminded of how quickly GG had died overnight and started to prepare myself for finding her dead in the morning.

And so it was. She'd gone first into the hut last night as always, straight into her corner, and there she still was, her head twisted to her side, quite stiff. Poor Chissit. I really can't say why she died, she didn't seem ill until yesterday afternoon. Maybe she'd eaten something that was poisonous, I just don't know.

That was just one of the upsets this morning. Getting ready at 7.30 to let the ducks out I saw a young fox coming up to the birch outside the conservatory. That's the first sighting we had for some time - in fact John had seen droppings yesterday and we were worried as we hadn't seen anything of the waterhens. But at least I saw them this morning, parents and two youngsters, twice. Whether all 4 are still there or I saw 2 twice I'm not sure.

Our garage 9 are stopping in the enclosure today until we come back from Luncheon Club duty. At least Primmie has almost lost her limp - for now.......

Talking about the fox reminded me about the fright I had on Tuesday morning. I was alerted by a lot of quacking, and when I checked up it looked as if our 9 were trying to get into the gate of the electric fence. I couldn't see anything to worry about from the conservatory, but when I went back into the house there was this huge Rottweiler sniffing around near the gate to the garage duck enclosure, and as I opened the front door it was on the door step! It wasn't at all eager to go when I tried to chase it up the drive, but it went up the road eventually. I imagine it was this big dog that frightened the ducks and they were trying to reach safety inside the electric fence.

Friday, 13th July 2007 - I'm not superstitious!

The duck pond 6 seem to have taken the loss of Chissit in their stride. In fact the only two occasions there was a noticeable reaction was after the fox had taken Valentino, and Gertie and Fanny went panic stricken when the fox-coloured Harlequin suddenly appeared. And then when Fanny was left entirely on her own; she didn't stop crying loudly for days.

John and I were very pleased when we managed to get our newly planted-up 3 baskets of rushes and reeds to stand upright in the pond on Tuesday night. Wednesday morning they all looked fine and straight, but I thought the contents of the first basket had been tamped down a bit, the reeds weren't sticking out at the top any more.

Yesterday morning I spent some time watching this visitor:

I'd been alerted to it by the urgent calls of the waterhens - it must have been a right scare for them to have their home ground invaded by this big bird.

After he'd gone I thought I could see a waterhen flying up and down near the baskets, but dismissed that and reckoned - from that distance - I must have seen it hop over the white fleece barrier to the vegetable patch, as they do quite often.

We were out all day yesterday, but at bedtime I noticed the contents of the second basket had been squashed down as well as the first; it looked as if the waterhens were making nests inside there. And yes, tonight I could see they had been quite busy during this rain-sodden day and added sticks to their arrangement!

I don't know what good they think the sticks do, but they'd added them to this nest, too, on the nearside of the pond:

The loose green nest in between the logs at the back is gone now, by the way.

So, this was the scene below when the 6 were going to bed tonight. I wonder if we can get Graham to come with his fishing rod to cast a hook and yank the lop-sided baskets upright again? When I think that the bullrush in the middle basket extended above those two sticks by at least a metre! I do hope everything will settle and start to grow and spread. After all we planted those thinks to help clear the pond [and we added lots of water fleas to feed on the green algae], not to provide nesting facilities for the waterhens! Good job I love those little tykes.

Sunday, 15th July 2007

The middle basket had been squashed sideways onto the water surface yesterday morning, but I managed to get all three upright again with the help of our extendable lopper - Graham's fishing rod not required after all!

The contents of the third basket have had the treatment as well now; I suppose all I can do is wait and see if the rushes and reeds recover and grow. Tried creeping up on our waterhens again this afternoon, in the rain, but didn't have much luck with the photos:
There are a couple of waterhens in this picture, just above the two baskets on the right. John has seen how they get out of those baskets again after having flown in - they climb up the mesh! While I was there I saw one of the adults fly into that low-hanging ash branch and disappear into the hawthorn beyond. I couldn't see a nest up there, so maybe they just use it as an observation post ........ no wonder they can see us coming!

Another thing I saw was one of the youngsters perched on top of one the ducks' water buckets next to the hut. The photo turned out fuzzy, but I've inserted a small cut-out of it, like a green bubble, above the bucket in this picture.

No other news to report apart from saying that I'm happy to see Primmie apparently walking and runnning as normal, but I wish Chissit was still with us.

Tuesday, 17th July 2007

Can I take you back to Friday, 8th June 2007 in these diaries for a minute? I had ordered a roll of green plastic [60 metres of it!] that looked like moss. Well, it was delivered very quickly, but I haven't mentioned it as it was a total disaster. I tried a couple of short lengths first to put on the edge of the pond where the ducks get out mostly, but I had to weigh it down with bricks as it floated - I then remembered that it was being sold with adhesive; should have glued it on when the pond was dry and empty.

But no, that wouldn't have worked anyway, because I soon found out that this plastic moss was not duck-proof. In the afternoon I found the whole pond covered in what looked like loose wool. Yep, they'd nibbled it all off:

These are the first two bits I'd had to fish out again, and I'm still wondering what good use I can put the rest of the roll to. One length of it is now part of the barrier around the frog pond, you can see a bit of it bottom left of the next picture:

What you can also see is that all the plants in and around the frog pond are thriving without the ducks' interference, but so's the duckweed - you can't win all the battles!

But, back to 8th June. I also mentioned the Bluebell Nursery's solution to nibbling ducks, the plastic mesh over grass turves. I had a go at that yesterday, as I had some of the mesh left from my "baskets" down at the duck pond:

Isn't it amazing how well the hosta at the back is still doing? It was ripped to shreds last year.

A close-up:
The idea is that the ducky beaks can still dabble in the grass turves but not pull them right off. If this works I shall get some more mesh and cover the edges all the way around.

Thursday, 19th July 2007

The mesh has kept the grass turves safe so far, and I have bought some more and will carry on with putting grass and mesh all the way around. Have also nearly finished a big "basket" for this pond and one more for the duck pond.

John has been sure for some time now that there are actually five waterhen chicks, not four, and last night I could see he was right! I was shunting the ducks into their hut at about 20.15, and was so surprised and pleased that both adults and chicks didn't disappear behind the logs on my approach that I stood and watched them for a minute. Then I saw why they had stayed this side of the electric fence ............... a fox appeared just on the other side of it, level with the duck hut. And the fence hadn't been switched on, either! Good job I turned up when I did. It certainly looks as if our E-fence has helped the waterhens to rear all 5 youngsters so far.

At half past 10 last night we heard a fox barking near the garage, didn't see it again though. It appears we have to keep on the alert.

Tuesday, 31st July 2007

Picking up where I left off above, only saw a fox again one evening last week. A smaller one this time, and it had come down the drive from the road; all the ducks were safely "in bed".

Well, I have some catching up to do! Had visitors for just over a week, very dear visitors: all Annie's family with Ollie just at the start, and then Annie and Eleanor until yesterday. Eleanor was keen to do her second-in-command duck keeping duties and was always there first thing in the morning even when she was tired - she was up well before me most days. Here she is letting the duck pond 6 out and collecting the eggs out of the hut:

John's veg patch has been devastated by the rabbits this year, as you can maybe see in this picture. They manage to slip through the E-fence even when it's switched on..

What's quite clear in this picture is that only one reed in the basket in the middle has grown to a fair size. However .....................

............. in this one the vegetation looks positively lush. Can you spot the waterhen's eggs in there? We first noticed them in the middle of last week, just 2 at first, then 3, and this morning I'm sure I counted 5, see below:

I'd be delighted if they manage to hatch them; I've seen both grown-ups and teenagers sitting on the eggs. They only desert them when we come to let the ducks out and put them in at night.

They've obviously chosen this basket for the nest as the reeds grew fastest in this one and provided some cover.

Not having done any weeding down there lately I've not caught the young waterhens on camera all week, but I did just get one in the ditch [their beaks are colouring up again now]:

It's August tomorrow, my, how time flies! Looking forward to Richard's and Gerd and Maria's visit in the second week and then Pearl's birthday.