30 Days Wild day 4- Geese

I'd arranged to meet a friend on campus around mid afternoon, and arrived a little early, so I sat on a bench near the music department to wait.  I was minding my own business when some geese approached, goslings in tow.

The goslings on campus seem larger than they did this time last year- most have already started to get their adult wing feathers, although they're still awkward and gangly and a little way from full grown. Whether they actually started breeding earlier or not is hard to tell, of course, as it's easy to not see goslings at all until they're a few weeks old. There are certainly still some smaller goslings around.

Another family started to approach too, the goslings still fluffy and the parents far more protective and wary. The goslings seemed completely unconcerned by my presence. It never fails to amaze me just how habituated the wildlife on campus can be.                                                                                                                            

30 Days Wild day 30- Ducklings again

For the first day of 30 Days Wild this year, I went down to the beck in my village to look for ducklings. So, for the final day, I decided to go back, and see how much they'd grown.

I didn't see any ducklings large enough to be the ones from the 1st June. Many of the ducklings leave the beck once they get older, I suspect to go to other areas where there are more food resources and the population density of ducks is a little lower. However, there were still several families of ducklings, some of which looked very new indeed.

It was a great way to end this years 30 Days Wild. By the end of June it's beginning to feel like the frenzy of nesting birds is drawing to a close so it was a timely reminder that, even as Spring has turned to Summer, there's still an awful lot going on in nature.

30 Days Wild day 20- Clumber park

The 20th was my mum's birthday, so first thing in the morning I got on the train and went to meet my parents in Newark. After spending some time at a gallery, we stopped at Clumber Park for a walk in the early evening.

I've loved Clumber Park since I was little. It's a National Trust property, somewhere we used to go for days out, with picnics and ball games. The house was demolished in 1938 so what remains is a beautiful patchwork of parkland, woodland and heathland. There's also a lake, which one memorable weekend we ended up walking all the way around after getting lost on my bronze D of E expedition.

We didn't walk all the way around the lake on this visit, but we did walk up to it. It was full of bird life, with swans, coot and moorhen, as well as large flocks of greylag and canada geese. The goslings were mostly full grown, like in York, but there was a family of swans which were absolutely captivating.

I'd never really considered how swans feed their cygnets before, assuming that, like ducklings, they forage relatively independently. However, that proved not to be the case. The adult swans were using their long necks to reach down to the water plants growing from the bottom of the lake, then lifting them up to the surface for the cygnets to eat. It was fascinating to watch.

30 Days Wild day 9- Wild admin

I had a careers event on campus today, so decided to catch up with some of my favourite residents of the lake- the coot families. Instead of going to one of the IT rooms to catch up on emails, I settled down on one of the benches by the side of the lake, and waited for the wildlife to come to me. It didn't disappoint. 

#30DaysWild day 9- finding a wild spot to catch up on emails pic.twitter.com/qCOM9CLcSg

— Alexandra (@OwlAli) June 9, 2016

 The juvenile coots were getting to the semi-independent stage. They still begged for food from their parents, but were also attempting to dive themselves. It was hard to tell just how successful these foraging trips were, but they're obviously well on their way to fending for themselves.

Day 1 - 30 Days Wild 2016

Well, June has certainly got off to a seasonal start! I'm at home in Lincoln for a few days at the moment, which means we're getting very similar weather to Springwatch at RSPB Minsmere. I was planning on making the most of having access to the garden at home by doing a count of everything going to the bird feeders. Unfortunately, pretty much everything which has landed on the bird feeders has been blown straight off!

The view of the bird feeder I've had for most of the day- without any birds on it!

 So, with limited luck on the bird feeders, we decided to try to find wildlife somewhere else. A beck runs through my village, which, until I went to the University of York, was the best place I knew for ducklings. There weren't many ducklings out today, probably because of the weather. The family we did see were reasonably old, with down replaced by the starts of proper feathers. All apart from one, which was much smaller, and with no obvious feathers.

You can really see the difference in maturity between the ducklings here

These ducklings had obviously hatched at different times, despite all of the eggs in a mallard nest hatching over the course of around a day and so must have come from different broods. Creching or brood amalgamation like this has been observed in a number of duck species, as well as mallards. It might be because ducklings have a higher chance of survival because of the "safety in numbers" which large, combined broods may provide, or simply be accidental. There's also evidence that females don't tolerate ducklings from different broods and may even kill them. However, the female with these ducklings seemed completely unconcerned by the smaller one, which was one of the first to follow the female as she lead all of the ducklings downstream.

Brood amalgamation is a really interesting piece of behaviour, and there's lots of information available online if you're interested in finding out more. It just goes to show you can see some really fascinating things even on short walks in places you know well- a great start to 30 Days Wild!