Tea? (Part 1)

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Speicher

Vice Admiral
Moderator
Some questions for Uncle Phil now. Not far from here, on what is a flood plain, the landscape has been slightly altered to allow large/small ponds to develop and a narrow sort of river thingy. (Do pause to admire my grasp of the terminology here :smile:).

Anyway, my questions - so far a few ducks and geese have arrived. Do ducks and geese tolerate each other in the same pond? Does nature set a sort of optimum level of wildlife arriving, or could it get over-crowded? When do the cute little ducklings arrive? Am I right in thinking that you must not pick up a duckling or its mother may abandon it?
 

Angelfishsolo

A Velocipedian
I've just put a pot on so help yourself :smile:

HelenD123 said:
But do you have the obligatory checked shirt to go with them?

Any tea on the go?
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Speicher said:
Some questions for Uncle Phil now. Not far from here, on what is a flood plain, the landscape has been slightly altered to allow large/small ponds to develop and a narrow sort of river thingy. (Do pause to admire my grasp of the terminology here :smile:).

Anyway, my questions - so far a few ducks and geese have arrived. Do ducks and geese tolerate each other in the same pond? Does nature set a sort of optimum level of wildlife arriving, or could it get over-crowded? When do the cute little ducklings arrive? Am I right in thinking that you must not pick up a duckling or its mother may abandon it?

For a minute there, I thought you were going to mention the obligatory ox-bow lake...

Ducks and geese certainly tolerate each other on the Uni Campus lake, but then it is the largest plastic lined lake in Europe. Apparently.
 

Chromatic

Legendary Member
Location
Gloucestershire
Uncle Phil said:
No. Those are a quite different kind of agricultural trousers. Those can only be worn with wellies and a torn nylon mac. An extinguished cigarette glued to the lower lip is de rigeur, and you have to be carrying a bit of plastic pipe with which to encourage your cows towards the milking shed. You have to have cows, too.

And it's not just string. It's Marks and Spencers string binder twine (preferably orange).

These are the altogether smarter and more easily come by tractor-driver's type trousers. Green and almost indestructible. Red diesel just runs off (not sure about road diesel...) You can tow vehicles out of ditches with them (remember that jeans advert?)

Oh, yes, Tea?

And what is the biscuit of the day?


Baling twine, surely??
 

Amanda P

Legendary Member
Ducks and geese do tolerate each other. Swans can be a bit pushy, but they will deign to allow other birds to use their pond.

If there are ducks, and a reasonable amount of ground cover, I'm surprised there aren't ducklings already. Crows are very quick to steal duck eggs, and ducklings, though, so if the sight of ducklings being carried off to become meals for baby crows offends you, you may like to manage the habitat to discourage crows.

Ducks are not particularly good mothers, and they lose ducklings all the time - to crows, they fall down drains, they get lost, mum jumps up a step they can't climb, you name it. However, the ducklings are very firmly imprinted, and will do their damnedest to get back to mum whatever she does. So if you pick one up, it will probably scuttle back to mum with no problems, as long as she is still in sight. The trouble is, she's quite likely to wander off completely unconcerned at you meddling with her children.

Ducks and geese are quite happy, too, to adopt other people's ducklings and goslings - they sometimes form quite large creches, looked after by a dominant pair (only mum in ducks) while the real parents hover in the offing and trying to help look after them. If you find an abandoned duckling, point it towards the nearsets party of ducklings you can find, and it will probably latch on to them and be accepted.

Geese are quite good at dumping their eggs in their neighbour's nests. This explains the occurrence of canada geese paired to greylags - they grow up thinking they're the wrong species.

Your lakes won't become overcrowded. When it gets too busy, newcomers will come and check it out and go on elsewhere.

And, cruel as it may sound, the environment will only support so many animals. When the population gets too large, some will die (or fail to breed) from lack of resources, thus restoring the balance.

(This last bit of info is Population Ecology 101 in a nutshell, and something politicians would do well to learn about).

I have on today a blue self-striped collared shirt, and a sort of purply fleece pullover. But I do have the obligatory check shirt to go with the agricultural trousers.

I'm also hoping one day to blag one of those John Deere boilers suits that are so popular with the modern tractor driver.

Anyway, is there a brew on?
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Uncle Phil said:
Ducks and geese are quite happy, too, to adopt other people's ducklings and goslings - they sometimes form quite large creches, looked after by a dominant pair (only mum in ducks) while the real parents hover in the offing and trying to help look after them. If you find an abandoned duckling, point it towards the nearsets party of ducklings you can find, and it will probably latch on to them and be accepted.

I remember seeing some lovely footage of a creche of Eider ducks, making their first trip to the sea. Mother Eider led them all the way there, over rock pools and seaweed and all sorts, them all toddling like mad to keep up, got there, decided the sea was too rough and went all the way back....
 
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