April news - new field, ducklings, lamb report

 
April the first and it's not a joke - this morning two bright yellow ducklings for Dark Green Duck, our first of the spring.   Mrs Duckel, the grey and white duck, looks on from her own nest - she has three weeks to go.

Field with a View 

We've recently added a six acre meadow for your enjoyment at Watermill Cottages - it's at the top of the lane and has stunning views over Start Bay to the lighthouse at Start Point.  It's great for sunsets (and eclipses) too.  

We're planning a campfire place and rustic seating so it'll be the perfect spot for family picnics and sundowners, never mind watercolours, photography, kite-flying (it catches the breeze), and rolling down the slope.  It's a healthy stroll with the delight of walking down hill home to your cottage.

Sheep Report   Matilda is thriving (still on bottles), here she is with the cuckoo lamb from last year and Jesse the friendly Jacob ram who eats from your hand

Cuckoo lamb, Jesse ram and Matilda

Jesse

   

ten rescued ducklings

'There are ducklings all over the lawn, quick come and help' so we ran to the rescue ith buckets, fishing nets, wellies and anything we could find...  

A mallard had nested in a clump of pampas grass by the bridge,and her ducklings were leggily darting down the bank into the stream and being washed away.  they pooled in the eddies by the lawn, ran to the grass then back into th stream as we approached them.

The flow under the bridge was too strong for them to swim back upstream to their mum who called them to join her and the few duckling who'd entered the river well above the bridge.
 
We collected ten of them and put them in an open-topped box where we hoped thier mum might join them and encourage them out.  She didn't.  So John rigged up the poultry heat lamp in the chickenarium he built for hen chicks last year and we made a warm nesting box at one end with a dog-bowl pool and food at the other.  They were there for a week before the whole construction was sodden - 
mallards ducklings love to splash!

They're now in the dog kennel with a heat lamp and a large baking tray pool in the sunshine - it doesn't matter how wet everything there gets.  We crush corn and pellets for them, give them grass too.  They are thriving! And very fast.

A few more weeks of heat lamps and they can join the muscovies and ducklings.  So far so good....  

It's spring at Watermill Cottages!