Honk at the neighbors
Tuesday, May 27th, 2025 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizvogelWe get a lot of wildlife at the pond, including the occasional heron, sometimes a pair of mallards stopping by, and some kind of bug-fishing bird I haven't yet identified. Geese are rare.
Sunday I looked up to find a small flock of geese making their way from the woods to the water. Six adults, five half-grown goslings... and, yes, two smaller goslings, barely more than bundles of yellowey-gray fluff. They swam around the pond for a bit, then waddled out on the far side and nibbled their way over the berm and back woods-ward.
Today they were back, in the front lawn. (Just coming from over the road, I think; I'd wondered what the cars were slowing down for.) I got a much better look at the tiny goslings this time. They and their parents seem like an annex of the flock; with it, but a bit off to the side. Possibly the parents are just very protective of their much-smaller offspring, as who could blame them?
Just now I can see the four adults and five teenagers in the field across the road again. No sign of the others; I hope that means they've decided not to chance the road so much until their tiny balls of fluff can waddle a bit faster.
In related news, I've been enjoying watching the muskrats swim about and collect bits for what I assume is a nest. I was less pleased to discover that one of them has burrowed into the main patch of water iris, and eaten about two-thirds of the plants to the ground. We may have to have words about that, though overall I do quite like muskrats; they're rather like pond-otters.
Sunday I looked up to find a small flock of geese making their way from the woods to the water. Six adults, five half-grown goslings... and, yes, two smaller goslings, barely more than bundles of yellowey-gray fluff. They swam around the pond for a bit, then waddled out on the far side and nibbled their way over the berm and back woods-ward.
Today they were back, in the front lawn. (Just coming from over the road, I think; I'd wondered what the cars were slowing down for.) I got a much better look at the tiny goslings this time. They and their parents seem like an annex of the flock; with it, but a bit off to the side. Possibly the parents are just very protective of their much-smaller offspring, as who could blame them?
Just now I can see the four adults and five teenagers in the field across the road again. No sign of the others; I hope that means they've decided not to chance the road so much until their tiny balls of fluff can waddle a bit faster.
In related news, I've been enjoying watching the muskrats swim about and collect bits for what I assume is a nest. I was less pleased to discover that one of them has burrowed into the main patch of water iris, and eaten about two-thirds of the plants to the ground. We may have to have words about that, though overall I do quite like muskrats; they're rather like pond-otters.
