Welcome Visitors

It’s taken a while to get to writing this post, which in a way is actually in two halves!
I walked Maggie in the park on my own this morning. As things turn out, she has only had three walks today, two of which were in the park and her final one round the block after the round of applause for our NHS and other frontline workers.
She did the business and I cleared up, being careful to avoid the other mess on the pavement and grass where other owners hadn’t, then made my way towards the bridge to walk back to the entrance and home.
I noticed a greylag goose on the pathway with a canada goose companion. I believe geese, like swans, pair for life and last year it is possible there was such a coupling.
I took some photos with my phone, so they’re not as good as I’d like.

The canada goose went in the water first, but the greylag seemed to want some encouragement.

When I crossed over the bridge, I saw a flock of four more greylags, so whether these are new to the area or last year’s youngsters is unclear, but we’d only seen two greylags here before, though there is a nesting site for them about five miles away.
Time will tell if we have goslings from both breeds.

This afternoon Maggie had a second walk in the park with both of us, and I could not believe what we saw at what had been the boating end of the lake.

Four beautiful swans.

These are last year’s brood as their wing feathers are still browny grey. From what I can remember, when cygnets are about a year old, they are ‘seen off’  by the adults to fend for themselves, so that could be why this group have come here.
Again pictures were taken with my phone

These three seemed to stick close together, so I guess the fourth was more confident to explore. This is our third spring here and the first time we’ve seen swans on the lake. Talking to one of our local residents, apparently this is unusual.

What a wonderful day.

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