May09

Sunday, 3rd

I've not seen an awful lot of the waterhen chicks, just a little glimpse now and then of them scuttling into hiding or trying to climb out of the pond, never more than three of them. I do hope that there'll be a second brood on the pond now that the vegetation has grown and offers more cover.

Took these photos a couple of days ago:

The little black balls of fluff went into hiding as soon as I approached:

And in the next field the cat was lying in wait, I hope it doesn't get any more.

Brother Gerd has made me aware that I've neglected these diaries shamefully - sorry to Gerd and to everybody who likes this link as a way of keeping in touch!

Well, I don't think I can give good news on the waterhen chicks front. For a couple of days since I last wrote I could see two little ones and two adults, since then I've only had glimpses of 1 or 2 of the adults further up the hedge, nothing around the duck pond. I can only guess what happened to them, whether it was cats, birds or the fox that John saw lying under the big holly tree, immediately on the other side of our ditch on Wednesday 6th when I was visiting my friend Pearl.

With the weather having been so wet lately and very, very windy I have seen little of the 4 by the duck pond except mornings and evenings and when throwing them the occasional much loved pasta or rice. But I can hear that Captain remains occupied down there with regular visits from mallards. I can hear the "keck, keck, keck" sound of the female when she's being chased - on the ground or in the air by 2 or 3 boys.

Because I had seen one evening that poor Circle was bleeding above her left eye I thought I had to do something about Captains regular "outings". I fetched out the old and badly rabbit-'eaten' fence section and positioned it alongside - and hopefully covering - the slightly larger openings in the new fence section which Captain had made use of to slip through.

Circle's injury had crusted over the morning after I spotted it, but a couple of days later she was bleeding at the same spot again, and worse. I found Captain creating havoc among the ducks and chased him back to near the horse fence where he used to slip through without trouble. But he couldn't make it through the now double fence and ran up and down in a great panic with me in pursuit. After several dives into the netting he got firmly stuck, and I had such a difficult time extricating him from the netting that I thought I might have to get scissors or a knife to cut the cords. Captain is the biggest of the three boys, but holding him firm to manoeuvre the netting over his wings and feet there seemed hardly anything to him under the feathers [I remember feeling the same when handling Fanny and BBD after their injuries].

I did get him out eventually and threw him over the fence back to his girls, and I must believe that this episode was a great shock to him as I haven't seen him out of his enclosure since. I have been very careful though to close the fence gate behind me when I go down with food in the mornings, because that must have been the place where he got out that day.

The group of seven I see a lot of every day as they patrol all around the house. Much as they love puddles after rain they have not been too happy with the violent downpours, and HAIL on the 8th and 15th. You can see them pulling in their heads to their chests and trying to find some cover. Now and again we've had some sunshine, too, and the ducks like their cover then as well:

In this photo on the left it's easy to see how much the "bird-food-birch" has come into leaf. The one above on the right shows that I was at least trying to do some gardening in spite of the frequent showers. That cotoneaster "chair", by the way, on the left of that photo, was used as cover from the hail storm on Friday by clever Decibels and Rellchen - all the others got hammered by hail stones in their search for cover.

These two, Decibels and Rellchen, seem to stick together quite a lot these days. Here they are again cuddled up together under Harlequin's Christmas tree, in this photo I just took this morning:

Also taken this morning, this photo - if you look closely - shows 3 of the duck pond four in the background at their feeding station. I had been hoping to capture the abundance of hawthorn blossom which is all around us at the moment. In the sunshine we seem to be surrounded by foaming waterfalls - - not much sunshine this morning, though.

PS at 7.10 pm. I was wrong about Captain not getting out. I've just witnessed a vicious looking fight by all three drakes on top of Circle, it seemed to go on for ages. Circle shook herself when she got free eventually and I can't see any damage, but it's a pain that my new fence arrangements are not Captain-proof.

Saturday, 23rd May 2009

Captain must have pushed underneath the netting where it wasn't pegged down. I collected all the pegs I could find and pegged where I think he got through, but he still managed a couple of times this past week - no more damage done to Circle, though. Mind you, she and the others in this group have enough trouble contending with their two boys, they can be just as nasty in their assaults.

The waterhen chicks must have fallen victim to either cats or fox as we've seen none. It's been encouraging, however, to see some activity around the enclosed reeds by the adult waterhens - I'm hoping for a second brood in that area.

I've been busy trying to do a bit of a clear-up in this area behind the Post Office, and yesterday afternoon I was even able to shift - with John's help - the old and totally overgrown telegraph pole that was lying there ever since we moved here.

The ducks thought it was a GREAT improvement:

Sunday, 24th May 2009