Not exactly ducklings

Well I had a good adventure, thank you. I am a bit tired after my ten hour hike (not as tired as Fizz) so I am just going to show you some of the best bits.

We wanted ducklings but this time we got goslings.

This is a perfect little Greylag Goose, it has even got it’s own reflection.

I am getting very fond of the Greylags and I am really pleased to be able to see and photograph the goslings.

This was a family group with both parents proudly showing off their chicks. Well not really showing them off, they were avoiding people but came over to me when a dog jumped in the water on the other side of the pond.

The goslings moved freely between the two adult birds, they weren’t just following mum.

It was really nice to see them and I hope that I get the chance to watch them growing up.

Tranquility

A post about Greylag Geese.

I am having a bit of calm in my life now. I am just wondering whether I want to take a walk to the nearest village and get myself a little bottle of whiskey, maybe rent a film and have a cosy afternoon/evening.

There is something very relaxing about watching geese. I think that it is just the way that they move so effortlessly. Movement with no apparent moving parts.

These are Greylag Geese.

Here is a beautiful, relaxing scene.

I should probably work on my Easy Wildflowers blog while I have got a bit of time. Perhaps I will just put my feet up and have a little afternoon nap while I think about it.

Yup! That’s me relaxed.

Animal Magic

“Just like that”

It’s your destiny

The Swallows have fledged, or at least they are fledging. They are still in the nest today but they have been out and they can fly.

It has taken me a few days watching and all that you get are a couple of short video’s but for me, my understanding and the pleasure that I got from watching them makes a few days just a drop in the ocean. It was time well spent.

Anyway you should be glad that you don’t have to watch the whole twenty hours of video, that I now have to sort and delete from my machine to free up space.

Here are the best bits.

Yesterday morning there were five birds on the nest, there were five birds on the nest and then there were four birds on the nest. I had missed the very first flight and only realised when number five returned to the nest.

This first video starts with the mother calling for them to leave the nest, there is a little comic interlude of the way that they follow flies, their little heads bobbing in unison and in the last bit the second bird to approach the nest is the returning chick. Does he bring food back or do the others just think that he has?

This next video shows them leaving the nest and returning. They spent most of the day fluttering around inside the little alley way that has become their home and by the end of the day they were all settled back on the nest but this is fledging. Today I think that they have ventured outside and seen the blue sky but they still return to the nest.

These birds have made me think a lot about nature as a whole thing and about life and death in the wild. The caterpillars that I am trying to raise are falling to the parasitoid flies that these Swallows depend on for food and survival. The parents have done a really good job of raising them given the wet weather we have been having. I have often looked out in the pouring rain and wondered how they are managing to raise a brood and now this, flight.

I am so in in love and in awe of them and so damned jealous.

I am jealous because they get to eat those delicious crunchy flies, or perhaps because they can raise offspring in a matter of weeks and not the 26 years it usually takes us. Maybe I am jealous of something else altogether…..