Ed played golf today while I stayed at home and minded the house (aaahhh) so he was under strict instructions to find out about the swan.
Apparently all the eggs have hatched, although I’m not sure how they know that since no one has seen the cygnets. The cob is still hugely aggressive, and the thinking is that the swan has hidden the cygnets in the reed bed until they are big enough to venture forth, while the cob fiercely deters all comers.
Meanwhile, the oyster catcher (it’s a bird with a long, slender red beak and red legs, normally only found on the sea shore) still has three chicks, or three little bundles of fluff on long, spindly legs.
Yes, life on the golf course is fairly humming.
We’ve just had solar panels fitted onto our roof – for free. A local green energy company has a brokered a deal with the government and the National Grid, to put in solar panels on south-facing roofs, and maintain it, free of charge. We get free electricity from the sun, and the company gets paid by the Grid for any we don’t use, the whole scheme being underwritten by the government.
We’re delighted, and keep nipping through to peek at the meter to say how much we’re getting for free. Apparently it should reduce our electricity costs by around 45% – can’t be bad!
Tomorrow we’re off to Belgium via Eurostar, for a week. See you in June, ‘bye for now!
…continues. The swan on the golf course, that is.
A couple of weeks ago she was suddenly off the nest, and I was unable to see any sign of the six eggs. Then she was back on the nest, and when I played last week, she was sitting as she had for what seems like many weeks.
A friend suggested she had covered her eggs when she left the nest for a short period. That made me feel better.
Today, not only was the nest deserted, but there was no sign of the swan. I had a good look in the nest and could see several broken egg shells, but whether they’re broken because they have hatched, or whether they have been snatched by a predator, I have no idea.
Apparently the cob has been extremely aggressive lately, threatening anyone who ventured within five or six feet (and it’s difficult to avoid that distance when you’re playing golf, especially with some of the wayward shots), so he may have been protecting young cygnets, or the swan may have herded them off somewhere for safety. No one has any idea what has happened.
On a brighter note, we had an oyster catcher and its young brood on the course today. Very unusual – they’re generally only seen on the seashore, so that was great.
Ed and I are away next week so I shan’t catch up with the saga of the swan for a couple of weeks.
Watch this space!
Delighted to actually wake up today.
Far from ending, the world appears to be more or less intact, although we have ferocious winds buffeting our plants. Nothing like a tornado or hurricane, though, and our plants generally manage to survive the rigours of the English weather.
I wonder where we’d all be if the world really had ended. In heaven? Hell? Some unknown place of darkness? Existing only in thought or emotion? Who knows?
I have something of a pet theory that what continues after death is love, so the more we learn to love in this life, the more likely we are to find ourselves living and loving beyond this life. Perhaps Jesus was seen on earth after his death because his love was so strong that it was manifest physically. And perhaps people sometimes see their loved ones after death because their love for each other was so strong.
But as I say, it’s only a theory. What’s your theory of life after death?
No, not that sort of nature. Sorry to disappoint you. This is the furry, feathery kind.
I played golf on Monday, and was both surprised and upset to see that the swan had left her nest – for the first time in weeks – and was languidly sitting my the side of the pond. Upon closer inspection, there were no eggs in the empty nest, but no cygnets either.
My golfing partner and I wondered what had happened. A fox? An otter? (Do otters eat eggs?) Or had she just abandoned them, after weeks of patient sitting?
We had no answers, but Ed was more encouraging when I got home.
“Perhaps someone has incubated them. There may be a simple reason…”
When he played yesterday, I asked him about the swan.
“Perfectly all right,” he said. “She was sitting on the nest just as usual.”
So now I’m really confused. Is she sitting on an empty nest for comfort? Did I fail to spot the eggs on Monday? Or is there a bunch of tiny cygnets which were hidden under her wings on Monday?
Can’t wait to play tomorrow, just to solve the mystery!
You see life on our golf course, but not always the most uplifting of scenarios.
The swan is still on her nest, protected by the small wire fence erected by the greenkeepers when she first started sitting some weeks ago.
On another pond, the mother moor-hen has managed to raise a brood of six chicks, little black furry bundles skittering about everywhere on tiny spindly legs. I tried to snatch a photo with my phone, but she hurried them all into the pond at amazing speed as I surreptitiously approached, and all of them disappeared.
Further round, on the pond by the seventeenth green, is a duck with three or four fluffy yellow ducklings. At least, there were three or four ducklings. Just as I was about to putt on the seventeenth, there was the most raucous cacophony. I missed the putt (but can’t blame the noise. I just missed it), and turned to see a large black crow swoop down on the ducklings as mother tried to shoo her brood into the pond.
In a micro moment the crow had grabbed a duckling in its large claws, made off with it, and could soon be seen pecking at it. The mother duck was distraught, and to be honest, all those of us who witnessed it were quite upset, too.
But there’s no room for maudlin sentimentality in nature. In another couple of moments, all was quiet again. The mother duck and her ducklings were serenely enjoying the pond, the crow finished its meal and flew away, and only us humans were left feeling somewhat bereft.
There’s a sermon in that somewhere, if only I could find it!