Tragedy or mystery?

In June I wrote about this Mute Swan who was stoically sitting on its nest all alone despite obviously suffering badly in the blistering heat. I never saw another bird with it, and as Mute Swans take turns with looking after the nest and chicks it seemed obvious to me that this bird might be in trouble. Well sadly it appears that either its mate died shortly after the eggs were laid leaving it unable to cope and causing the eggs to fail, or it is a female who built her nest alone and laid infertile eggs, because early this month I cycled past to find this…

An abandoned nest with only two cracked eggs in it. The determined swan had sat tight on its nest for two whole months to my knowledge, which cancels out the hope that the majority of the eggs might have hatched and the family swum away – swans eggs take approximately 35 days to hatch. The bird was sitting way too long.

But then again… I certainly wasn’t able to keep watch on this nest every single day and I could be wrong -  there might have been another bird and I just never happened to see it – I could also have overestimated the time the swan was sitting. It’s not like I was taking notes. I did ask every single person I saw looking at the swan if they had ever noticed another swan or how long they thought the swan had been sitting and invariably got the replies “nope” and “ooooh, ages“, which isn’t exactly scientific.  I guess I will never know.

Whatever actually happened, the disappearance of the swan has been of benefit to its neighbours. Earlier in the year when it was building its nest, I’d watched it driving off moorhens and coots who had already started building  and were understandably loath to abandon their nests just because a bigger bird wanted them out. Of course the swan won, but the smaller birds who had been nesting in this location for years didn’t go far. While I was looking at the huge abandoned nest a peaceful family of moorhens picked over it, selecting choice twigs and branches for use in their own construction.

I don’t know if there are many Londoners local to the area reading here but I was wondering… is there anyone out there who knows what happened to the Coppermill Lane swan? So many people stopped to look at it every day, it became locally quite famous. Not sure where I mean? It was on the western end of Coppermill lane (E17) near Springfield Park. It’s a very long shot I know but is there anyone out there who can help solve the mystery?

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Happy Belated Midsummer

Midsummer this year was a far gentler affair than last years epic  night walk up Snowdon - wow, was that really a whole year ago? R and I went instead to visit his parents in Hampshire and had a peaceful time strolling about in the countryside, eating his mothers home made delicious Victoria sponge cake and generally taking it easy. Midsummer is a special time though, and we spent midsummer eve skulking about in the fields wondering what would be the best way to mark it. Remnants of freshly harvested hay laying strewn about in the grass seemed too good not to play with, so we constructed a double spiral and spent a giggly half hour or so walking it’s curves as if it were a labyrynth, occasionally jumping into or out of the centres and generally thinking about how midsummer is one of the hinges of the year. Everything (apart from birdsong, which is already thinning) now feels to be at it’s peak, but already we are on our way to autumn.

Heavy workloads mean that we are both early to bed these days, but I suffer from insomnia and vowed to myself that if I awoke in the early hours I would bend this curse to my advantage. Sure enough I was wide awake at 4.20 am, so I quietly dressed and went outside. I’m glad I did. I’d hardly been out of the door ten minutes when I noticed a dark shape moving at the far end of the field. I raised my binoculars expecting a rabbit and instead was delighted to see a fox, apparently pounce-hunting for voles. I was hidden from view by a gatepost; the creature had no idea I was there so I settled to watch.  I assumed after a few pounces that foxy was having no luck, but then a second fox jumped up from the short grass, and the two leggy creatures started frolicking like spring lambs. It was a vixen and her mate; rather than hunting she’d been playing, trying to rouse him from a doze! I was entranced. Of course at this time of year I should have realised that there was something missing from this picture but it wasn’t missing for long as a third fox, their single cub, bounded out of the hedgerow and joined the game. They scampered and raced, cavorted and leapt, throwing bits of hay like confetti as they played. This went on for ten minutes or more, until one of the cubs’ games of hide and seek went on a little longer than before and I realised they had melted into the hedgerow for good.

I wandered across the fields hopeful of a badger sighting, and the pale dawn arrived rose petal white – a cloudy day. No badgers, they were probably already in bed as I was dressing, but I did get to see another fine dog fox on his way home from hunting. Wild foxed these – not your insolent unafraid urban critters but wary and suspicious, and for very good reason.  It was about six am when I wandered back over stubbly fields and already the sound of shotguns was punctuating the air. Hampshire is not a good place to live if you are furred or feathered, or so it seems to me. As I walked I found this pheasent’s egg, raided by one of the foxes perhaps or even a stoat.

Pheasants, introduced to this country purely as moving targets and preyed on by all and sundry may be cossetted by gamekeepers for the early part of their lives, but seeing that broken egg reminded me that theirs is a crummy lot really. Heartily glad to be top of the food chain I made my way back to the house.

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Good Omen

I’ve been working hard on the website; coding for the shop, and making things to sell there. It’s been pretty intense; I can barely see beyond my nose. Any meagre chance to escape the computer screen is a blessing, so last weekend was blessing indeed. Two whole days in the countryside, visiting my partners’ parents to celebrate his fathers’ 70^th birthday. We ate cake, had a barbecue, messed about in the long grass. In the hay-meadow beyond the house, just minutes before we had to go and catch our train back to London, we found this:-

Only the panicked, explosive flight of the mother pheasant as R. nearly stepped right on her gave the game away. The tall, rank grass completely obscured bird, nest, eggs and all, peering into it felt intimate; secret. It felt like a gift – a gift from the birds in the meadow.

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