Two (webbed) Footsteps Forward and One Back

Hot on the heels of yesterday's post comes a mainly duck-based one to catch us right up to schedule. Regular readers will know that we are running a small campaign to get back into ducks after recent losses to fox (and one of the terriers). We are also converting to some new varieties. The 'old school' Khaki Campbells from 2016/7 are now gone following our cull of the (2) aggressive drakes. That had left us with 3, then 2 youngsters hatched from our own eggs, the final eggs laid before the last female went extinct at the hands of the fox (13th May).

Delphinium

I had bought a Mum and 5 half-grown 'Appleyard' ducklings on 11th June. Readers may recall that these got landed into the long grass of the 'Hubbard Pen' and that although we knew they were settling in well, I had been unable to photograph them for you. They are real 'scaredy cats' and raced for cover as soon as a human appeared. Pictures of baby ducks in grass taller than they are is not really a thing.

"Rambling Rector" does his thing over the barn wall.

We knew they'd grow up eventually and want to come out and explore. We played the waiting game. In mid June, I 'ran out of breath', Elizabeth took over the stock and carried on with the feeding and schmoozing. She'd seen the two surviving Khaki's looking in at the newcomers through the chicken wire. It was looking good. We would let the Appleyards out free ranging when we were both there to supervise.

Mum Appleyard leads a first explore

Yesterday, I was just on a patrol, armed with a camera thinking I might get a pic of the 'Apps' around their new fruit-barrel drinker when I was confused to find a group of 6 ducks at the big pond. They must have squeezed out at the bottom corner of the gate and, by the time I saw them, they'd have met the Khakis and all seemed to be serene.

Pleasingly, there was not a sudden mass panic at the sight of me. The group gathered close round Mumma in that upright, vigilant stance that nervous ducks have. I sneaked a few pics, then quietly retreated to a distance to observe and texted Elizabeth. Not much point causing the big frightened upset rounding them all back up; we decided to bide our time till evening when they might just take themselves all off to bed. That was that for the pm, the joy of watching your new ducks explore the big pond, supervised by Mum and alongside the 2 Khakis.

New 6 meet old 2.

My 'backward step' of the title? Yes. It all went a bit downhill for a while, but not badly except for in the case of one Khaki. Elizabeth was home, I'd gone for a nap. I was getting up again when I may have (can't swear) heard an odd strangled squawk  out the back somewhere but Liz had heard nothing.

The only picture I have of all 8 ducks on the pond

It was a good hour later at the start of evening rounds, when she spotted that there was only one Khaki. The alarm went up and we searched far and wide but of the other bird there was no sign. We guess one more to the fox, returning on a day light raid 6 weeks after the last strike. 

Duck pond and blue sky

The evening was a bit of a mix of being sure that Brer Fox would not come back for a 2nd bird in the same day. This fox has not done that (yet). But at the same time, not wanting to risk him getting in amongst the new ones on their first day of free ranging. Long story short, it all ended well and everybody was safe for the night.

Not much else going on unless you want to hear of our continuing, decidedly non Irish heatwave which is now doing silly 30ºC stuff up in our corner. A friend has amusingly put up on  Twitter a couple of pics of her lane. She got hit by the bad snow when the 'Beast' struck over there in the East so her post has "The worst snow in 72 years and the hottest temps in 42 years, less than 4 months apart!"

Enough for this one. Wish us luck on keeping these ducks safe and enjoy the sunshine.

Blink and You'd Miss It

My pathetic best silaging picture so far. 

I am, as you'd know, always on the look out for new subjects for the 365 photographic project. A year in the life of our village and its townlands (sub-parishes). Silage making time was upon us; surely a crucial, can't miss, event in the year of a farming community. The weather forecast predicted a violent end to our lovely run of hot days so you'd KNOW the silage contractors would be biting on the bit, raring to go. On Wednesday evening I heard my first mowing machine roaring away a few fields out so I expected to be able to photograph the cutting stages followed by the baling and wrapping.

Last of the blue skies for now. Our next
door field with the suckler herd. We call it
(Vendor) Anna's 5-Acres. It probably has a
(better) real name.

Not on your life! So fast were these crews working that I saw a couple of fields mown and in their drying/wilting rows (I'd missed the mowing) but by the time I could get out again with the camera the grass was baled, carted and wrapped. I was left looking at a tightly shorn, rather surprised looking field. These boys do not hang about. The nearest I could get to a picture for '365' was a long-lens shot across the valley, of some baled silage awaiting the carting stage. All we had here was the to-ing and fro-ing of the contractor's bale-trailers gathering the harvest in to the local farm yards rumbling up and down the lane setting the dogs off barking.

A lovely stand of Aconites still going strong in the garden
 of a long-abandoned dilapidated cottage.  

In theory the hot spell has currently ended and we are returning to "normal" weather for June in the 'Wesht' of Ireland. I have to say that I had not noticed it getting much cooler. The clouds have returned and, mercifully, the little grey midges have departed so that I was able to clear a ditch and hedge for a neighbour without being driven to distraction. I don't have a problem with the 'bitey' ones - the real mozzies and midges - they don't seem to find me tasty. My beef is with the tiny grey ones who land in your sweat and then just walk about on your face. I hate them.

Dublin Bay rose always does well for us.

It seems we may have the daftest bunch of ducks in the land. These are our six 'Khaki Campbell' youngsters hatched at the beginning of March and now fully feathered and, you'd guess, as waterproof and buoyant as any duck could hope to be. For some reason they are frightened of going into the big pond. They love a splash about in their paddling pool and even though it is quite a big one, the 6 of them in there together leave very little room for any of them to move about.

Liz's pic of the ducks as close as they ever get to the water.
Feet on dry land and tips of bills in the water.

These guys are fully free-range and can walk pretty much anywhere on the 'farm' in their amusing waddling 'crocodile' of single file ducks. They have been all around the pond and seen it from all (dry land) angles but the nearest they ever get to getting in is when they all line up on the bank, feet on Terra Firma, to dip their beaks in and dabble at the marginal plants.

Interior of our local (RC) church for the
365 project.

I should quickly say that I am more than happy. Regular readers will know that I was always against having ducks because I think/thought that they destroy ponds leaving you with a stagnant, shitty mess with no pond life in it. Your standard village duck-pond in effect, an ecological desert, ringed by bare, brown, eroded bank mud. So to be able to have ducks and not get your pond wrecked seems too good to be true and I am leaving these ducks well alone. If they want to wash and brush up in the paddling pool and touch my lovely pond only with their bill-tips, then I am not going to argue with them. Neither of us can actually see this lasting and we are both quietly hoping to be the one out there with a camera when our little file of 6 ducks set off serenely across the pond leaving just a V of wake and their little feet under the water going like a train, out of sight.

Eat Your Vegetables!

Ross (l) and Somerville (r)

Our tiny pigs, Somerville and Ross are both nicely settled in now to our place and our ways. This may be the case every year (you forget) but they seem so tiny to me, probably because the last pigs we had were our departing Berkshires; long since gone through 'tiny' to become hulking 70-80 kg beasts. When the new ones turn up I worry that they are so small they will get through the gaps in the sheep-wire and it takes me a few weeks to relax into the idea that they might like it here and stay voluntarily, even if they could escape.

Ross is a galia melon kind of girl.

These two were immediately the most friendly and tame newcomers we have ever met. Real charmers. Within 24 hours I could feed them from a bowl which I still held, and now, a week later they are both sprinting up to me on my arrival and 'asking' for food. Somerville (the 'spotless', sandy one) is perhaps a lot more chummy that Ross (she of the many black spots and blotches). The former will allow me to scratch her head, shoulders and flanks and is all over me nuzzling into pockets and wellies. The latter, Ross, is a bit more shy, only allowing a little touching of her forehead.

Somerville prefers a tomato.

In a previous post I said that I was a bit worried about their lack of appetite. They seemed fixed on the wetted grain-mix that I got from the breeder and turned their noses up at my 'proper' commercial pig-ration. They also ignored my offerings of apple and carrot. 'What manner of pigs are these?', I worried, 'that they won't eat anything? Were we going to have to teach them to eat their vegetables like naughty children? We are through all that now as I ran out of good breeder-mix. They are now piling into my 1/3 : 2/3 mix of barley and pig-nuts and happily accepting apple, tomato, carrot and galia melon. That is a relief.

They are also lovely looking, attractive animals and I have been able to get some lovely pictures of them glowing in the afternoon sun as they wander about in the grass patch up the side of their 'woods' next to the goose orchard. They are completely unfazed by the arrival of a camera lens close to their pile of fruit. We have great hopes for them and they might just have knocked our belovéd Tamworths off the top of the "most favoured breeds" list.

Happy pig-butts

Meanwhile on 'veg' Liz continues to do the swimming lessons thing with the ducklings and both of us are finding, as usual, that the official diet of pure chick-crumb is just plain boring. The ducks enjoy dibbling the crumbs up from the surface of their bath but they just look like they should be grazing up greenery and vitamins. We had some curly kale in the fridge (for us, of course) and Liz wondered whether if she finely chopped this and set it afloat on the 'bath' water, the ducklings might enjoy that. Well, talk about feeding frenzy! 6 ducklings were immediately in the water splashing it every where as they scrabbled up the bits of kale. No problem with them eating their veg.

We are fast approaching the time when we can let them out into the rabbit runs on sunny afternoons for an hour or so, and, as they become more waterproof, we will also give them a try out on the big pond. We KNOW that ducks can wreck a pond but this is a BIG pond (6m by 10 m) and there are only 6 ducklings, so we are willing to risk it. If the pond starts to suffer we may re-think this plan and confine them to a smaller run with some kind of kiddies' paddling pool, but the photo's wont be anything like as good.