Early Friday evening we heard a strange sound and looked out of the side-hatch to see that a young swan had landed skidding along the ice. Luckily it seemed to be alright but was hungry and thirsty. David and Liz on nb Horus next door broke the ice for it and threw out some bread. We did the same and put some sweet corn on the ice for it to eat. Afterwards it walked on past, hopefully to snuggle down in one of the reed beds along the edge of the canal.
On Saturday several Pied Wagtails were running about on the ice too, eating the crumbs we put out. Although there are fat balls hanging on the side of the towpath only Great Tits have been pecking at them so far.
Two Mallards also came skating by, the female seemed to be better at it and the male had a job to keep up with her.
My afternoon walkabout took me up to Bridge 88 and across the fields where there were several baby lambs frolicking around. There was a bitterly cold wind blowing then it began to snow. I do hope that they all manage to snuggle down and keep warm tonight. Last night the temperature on our thermometer in the cratch read –3.4ºC and it hasn’t risen above freezing all day.
Bottle is not one to excerpt himself unnecessarily, so he stayed in practicing his ‘chairobics’ as usual.
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