sundry spring things

The duckometer indicates that spring is definitely on the way. The drakes have teamed up with their chosen ducks and, each morning when the Poultry Palace is opened up, off they go in search of the 'best place to build a nest'. OK for them but a bit disconcerting for us 'cos we keep bumping into ducks all over the Reserve. Not a bad thing, except it does rather excite some of the canines: Pilot actually couldn't give a damn about ducks (moles more his thing) but Lancer considers it his duty to retrieve and return them - either to us or to their pen. And very gentle he is too. Which doesn't mean that it doesn't excite him. In all the years here, however, he has never harmed a single feather. All are collected promptly and carefully with only, perhaps, their pride ruffled. But Gunner? Well he's learning: he gets enormously excited by ducks in areas other than their official pen. But he too is gentle, if a little confused still about what to do when he actually catches one. Personally I'm torn between teaching him to not retrieve them at all (the preferred 'training to be a gundog' stance) and teaching him to retrieve them very gently (preferred for dogs about the Reserve). Just now, the latter is winning.

Meanwhile, Ginger, Mangel, Wurzel and Pepper are all staying up later into the evening and, in all but the coldest weather, sleeping al fresco. All this seems to sharpen their appetites - each evening at dusk when I go to shut up the poultry I am greeted by a great cacophany of snorts and grunts which I interpret to mean - "We need more food to see us through the night". But, I suppose, could equally be "How nice of you to come out and see us before we turn in for the night!". (Why is it we humans think all animals want, when they give us attention,

is food).

The piglets in the wood are continuing to have fits of running around madly, eating all the tree roots and collapsing fast asleep for hours in their ark. Whenever we go to visit, they come bounding over from wherever they are just to say 'hello'. Clearly, life outside is much more to their liking!