A walk round the local playing fields on Wednesday night resulted in us spotting 12 ducklings in the little pond. They were very young and fluffy and sped round the lake after their mum. The pond has quite a bit of litter but there are always ducks and geese around and are clearly thriving there. We wandered round the pond and up over the small hill. On the other side of the hill there was another small pond with a couple of coots swimming about, and a beautiful old tree leaning out over the water. Unfortunately I ended up with 6 bites from hanging around the waters edge looking at the ducklings!Volunteering at Langdon Nature Reserve
After a long break from Langdon I returned on Saturday to do a spot of volunteering. It was a beautiful morning and we set out through the reserve towards the lake. Mick and Dave had been building a fence around the lake to help to prevent dogs swimming. Unfortunately the lake contains blue-green algae which is harmful to humans and can be lethal for dogs. We had a new volunteer as well so the four of us set about digging holes for the fence posts. We were using spades and giant tongs to lift the soil out. The soil was clay and wasn't too hard to dig out, although it did take Shelley and I some time to complete the first hole! We dug four or five holes and then had a break. We sat on the bench and enjoyed the sunshine and looked out across the lake where we saw 6 Canada Geese goslings. They were swimming all over the lake, sometimes following a parent, sometimes leading the way. We also saw a Holly Blue butterfly in the meadow.
We hammered on the posts with some very large nails. Eventually it will have wire tacked along the back to prevent the dogs running straight under it. Walking back through the reserve we saw several more butterflies and it felt good to be back!
Another visit to Langdon
Sunday was another gorgeous day and I really wanted to spend some time by the lake at Langdon. I also wanted to show Joel our beautiful "rustic" fence. We wandered through and saw a little green caterpillar [as yet unidentified], some sort of shield bug, goslings, ducklings, coots, moorhen, spawning carp, holly blue butterflies, a comma butterfly and a swift. We then stopped off at Ian's Garden [next door to the visitor centre] and checked out the vegetable patch and the pond. There were some beautiful dragonflies on the pond. We enjoyed an exceptionally delicious ice-cream and I went a bit daft in the gift shop!
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