Making it look easy

Mute Swans

I suppose it is easy, floating about on the water.

This is one of our breeding pair and I think that it is the male. The only real difference between the sexes is that males have brighter orange bills with a bigger black knob on top of it. They are easier to sex when you just have a pair of them like this.

 The female is on the nest.

It could easily be the other way around though, they both take it in turns to incubate the eggs which is a good thing because it takes five to six weeks before they are ready to hatch and that is a lot of sitting on a nest.

Then we could have as many as six or seven Ugly Ducklings or cygnets as they are sometimes called. and when they are little they can sometimes be seen riding around on their mothers back. I can see a few good photo opportunities coming out of this.

For now we are just going to have to be patient.

This is the first time that I have been able to photograph Swans on the nest. This is another family that we are going to see a lot on this blog.

 

Making Plans

It looks like we are going on an adventure tomorrow. It needs careful planning and I have to make my sandwiches.

Adventures have to start before dawn and right now that means about four AM so planning things the day before is essential.. We are going to the ponds.

You are probably thinking, “So what, what is there to see at the ponds?” Well, I don’t know, we make our adventures up as we go along and we don’t ever know what to expect.

It is not just the ponds it is getting there, an hour and a half walk through ancient woodland, which is why we have to start at dawn.

Then there is having our sandwiches, that is always good. I just hope she remembers to bring some this time.

Sometimes there are birds.

In fact Cannop is famous for it’s breeding Mute Swans. I haven’t really done the Swans justice. They are harder to photograph than you might think. They are very white and easily over exposed.

This one isn’t a breeder it is an offspring so less white and a pretty pink bill.

Sometimes we just like to relax and drink in the scenery.

Drink in the scenery, geddit? I’m so funny.

I’ll bring water.

Cannop is also famous for it’s Mandarins and they are not hard to photograph.

Tomorrow I will be trying hard to get closer to the female of the species.

There is one other bird that I am keen to get closer to and that is this Tufted Duck.

We might see birds, even ducklings. There might be Bluebells on the way and if we are really lucky Fizz might get chased through the woods by a Wild Boar, except that she will be with me so that won’t happen.

She nearly got run over by a Fallow Deer on our last trip. We were walking down a track with woodland on either side and Fizz was about ten feet in front of me. I saw this deer racing through the wood straight at Fizz and just as it broke cover I called her, she turned her head and didn’t even see the deer cross her path. She turned back walked on a few steps and then suddenly picked up it’s scent and went racing off into the wood it had just come out of.

“You are going the wrong way, Nature Detective Dog!”

We will see what tomorrow brings.

Today I am going to have another crack at the Swallows and Martins and take Fizz on an insect hunt. (Shortish walk)

I am excited.

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…..