Another Monday, another morning at this wonderful place which does so much for wildlife. We are phenomenally busy at this time of year, the phone rings non-stop, people turn up with animals (including, yesterday, a young Kestrel) in cardboard boxes in a steady stream, and we were very short of volunteers. So it was that I found myself exhausted and covered in duck poo at the end of a five-hour shift, mostly in the rain. Volunteer shifts are usually four hours, but I’m happy to stay a while longer and finish the job in hand: single-handed, I don’t think it would have been possible to get things done more quickly. I was tasked with feeding, watering and cleaning out the enclosures of three geese and over fifty ducks. I loved it. The geese were terribly unruly. There are two Greylags, one bigger than the other and, I could feel it, more than ready to be released. The other, and the most troublesome was a Canada Goose (we need a licence to release him since his species is still classed as invasive). He pecked at absolutely everything, including me, and he and the Greylag happily ripped holes in the bin liners into which I had put their dirty bedding. Leaving a neat stack of newspapers with which to line their house, I popped back inside to fetch something I had forgotten. When I got back, it looked as though there had been a whirlwind – the newspapers were scattered all over the enclosure.
The image above shows a morning glory or bindweed flower in the car park. It’s one of the few plants I usually pull up at home, along with brambles. I have even left the ragwort this year (see Animal Wild for my view of the unwarranted demonisation of that plant). Bindweed does tend to choke other plants but now feel I have been neglecting just how beautiful the flowers are.
Leave a Reply