wainiha woman

Homeward Boud

2011-05-15T02:01:00.000-07:00

It's time to pack my bag and head home. I turned my wellie boots in and said my goodbyes yesterday. I knew my mind was turning towards home last week when I noted "I Want To Go Back To My Little Grass Shack" playing on my mental jukebox.

I leave a landscape that has had the driest spring in recent memory and return to my beloved valley which has received over six inches of rain in the last two weeks.

Spring in England has ripened towards summer and the trees that were only hinting at green are now fluttering with leaves.

The nene goslings that fit so easily in my hand six weeks ago

are now going through that awkward--I would almost say ugly--adolescent transition from being covered in fluffy down to their adult plumage.

The pens that everyone worked to hard to re-turf , so the ducklings and goslings could have a fresh new start have gone from bare, scraped earth

to plush new grass with their first inhabitants

It has been a wonderful satisfying experience. Thanks for sharing it with me vicariously.

Aloha oe,

Kathy

One last bike ride

2011-05-08T08:11:00.000-07:00

I took a bike ride south four miles along along the Gloucester--Sharpness canal to Sharpness, where the canal meets the Severn River. It was a sunny, windy Sunday and sections of the canal were a sea of flower petals. Mallard hens were out with their ducklings.

There were people out picnicking, fishing, walking and kayaking along the canal. In the village of Purton I stopped to look around and saw this beautiful church, Saint John the Evangelist.

On a bend in the river there are the hulls of several old ships that were purposefully wrecked along the river bank to help prevent erosion of the riverbank.

I passed the abutments for an old railroad bridge made out of stone blocks. They looked like ancient turrets emerging from the trees.

The canal ends of the Port of Sharpness. The difference between the canal and river level at low tide is astonishing. One of the reasons the Severn estuary supports such huge numbers of wintering birds is that it has the second greatest tidal range in the world, second to the Bay of Fundy. At low tide this exposes extensive areas of tidal flats for birds to feed on.

note the level of the canal even with the top of the fence line

To the south is the bridge that spans the estuary separating England from Wales.

From the Port of Sharpness I looped around and headed back.

Whistling ducks hatching

2011-05-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

One of the things I learned in ornithology that astounded me is that ducklings talk to each other when they are still in the egg. They start breathing a day or two before they hatch, when they break through the membrane into the airspace at the blunt end of the egg (next time you eat a hard-boiled egg you can see the airspace and membrane as you peel the egg). Then they can can vocalize.

Our ornithology textbook described how slower developing chicks can communicate with the more developed ones so they can synchronize their hatching out. I find that so amazing! Phoebe took a video of Cuban whistling ducks in the process of hatching and you can hear them peeping to each other. She posted it to her blog on the WWT website:
http://www.wwt.org.uk/visit-us/slimbridge/phoebes-duck-diary/chatty-cubans-during-hatch

Before I ever met a whistling duck I fell in love with them for their alert, erect posture, bright disposition , whistling call, gregarious nature and their endearing habit of preening each other. There are several types of whistling ducks here at Slimbridge. Their enthusiastic-sounding calls always make be smile. We have only one lone whistling duck that I know of on Kauai. I like to visit him/her when I have time driving to Lihue and think what a sad lot it is to be the only one of your species around.

I hope you enjoy Phoebe's video!

This 'n that

2011-05-05T09:41:00.000-07:00

Not much remarkable to report. I did get a chance to peek at two freshly hatched ducklings yesterday...

and met my first Laysan ducklings, which were brought in yesterday.

The nene goslings continue to grow and are getting gangly. I love the legs-out posture of the closest one in this pile of goslings!

nests...

2011-04-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

As spring progresses more birds are laying and nesting. Here are some nests I have seen in the last few days. Most people think of nests as being fluffy and warm. Flamingos like them muddy and flat. Sparky led the team to help build up the muddy mesas like upside-down cupcakes for the Chilean flamingos.

Even the mate of cereopsis (Cape Barren goose) that bit me earlier in the week made a cozy nest decorated with down.

Below is an American black duck reluctantly showing Sparky her precious eggs.

This supreme nest is a swan's, of course. She built it on the bank of the canal that runs behind the Field fence; a nice quiet place to incubate her young. I see her in the distance every day when I wheel the feed cart through the gate into the Field. The other day I couldn't resist walking up quietly to take her portrait.

Sights and sounds

2011-04-30T02:14:00.000-07:00

I have been paying attention to all the sights and sounds that I will leave behind in two weeks: the squeak and clank of the gate into the Duckery; the nasal honk of the magpie goose and trumpeter swans in the Field; the Brent's ganders who have a honk-fest whenever someone approaches the breeding pen they share with two black-duck couples and a pair of hooded mergansers.

The Brent's ganders have gotten more aggressive in the last week now that their ladies are beginning to sit.Two or three come at me, bills open and their slender, pink tongues vibrating. When I get to the farthest food dish (nearest one nest) they are so upset that they jab at my Wellies and nip at where my trousers tuck into my boots. Poor guys, as short as they are that's as high as they can reach, and despite their sincere efforts to protected their nests my greatest danger is not from their attacks, but from tripping when trying to avoid stepping on them!

What a contrast to the silent ashy-headed gander who looks up at me with concern and wonder when I go into the breeding pool that he shares with several other species. His lady has been sitting in a clump of sedge a few feet away for a few weeks now. I wonder what he makes of me towering over him.

The Abyssinian blue-winged geese chatter and posture as I pass or enter their pen, full of threats, heads lifted and chests puffed out. The Magellan gander does the same, protecting his mate who is laying. I hear his calls from the Left-hand Poly Tunnel when I come through the gate into the Field. He is such a proud papa with is chest puffed out and head thrown back as he proclaims his sovereignty.

I have seen the adolescent male Japanese crane dancing and playing with a short piece of straw. What elegant long legs and movements! Later I caught this reflect of his female consort drinking from the canal that runs through their pen.

So many sights and sounds that I may never see or hear again. I am grateful to have this amazing opportunity to be here!

Nene goslings

2011-04-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

I just can't stop taking pictures of these little guys. They are so cute and inquisitive!

A walk on the Cotswold Way

2011-04-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

Dursley

I spent Easter morning taking a walk on the hills behind Dursley, a market town about 12 minutes drive away. It was a hazy day and a little cooler than it has been. The Cotswold Way is a National Trail, one of the long-distance trails in England. It is 102 miles long and ends south of Slimbridge in Bath. The highest elevation along the trail is 317 meters.

Imagine walking through the scene above listening to the church bells pealing from the town below.

Much of the route follows a golf course, sometimes along the edge, sometimes in the woods. There were dozens of boys from tweens on up in age playing golf, all neatly dressed in slacks and golf shirts or sweaters instead of swim trunks with surfboards under their arms!

This sign made me smile...

Even though the views were hazy there were ferns and flowers along the way to brighten my walk...

Ending with this wall of wisteria across the street from the car park.

The cape teal roundup

2011-04-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

Today we moved some cape teal form the Field back into their area on the Grounds where there has been some work being done. The cape teal have been among my favorites for the last week; the gang of them always greeting me with a chorus of enthusiastic "tee hee!" when I climber over the fence into their pen.

Herding birds reminds me of herding sheep on a miniature scale. First we herded them into a corner, then Duane and Sparky caught them and handed them to us and Wayne put them in a crate.

Then they are loaded in a cart and driven to their enclosure.

Now they have lots of room. Can you see those little grey dots at the far end of the pond?

FYI...

koloa at Slimbridge

2011-04-19T22:25:00.000-07:00

Some of you may be curious to see what the koloa look like at Slimbridge. At first, not knowing the other monochromatic ducks, it was hard to tell who was who. As I've tuned into the differences between species, and the more times I saw and heard these, I became more sure these were koloa. Sparky says, yes, they are the ones that hatched last year.

the cute and the ugly

2011-04-18T22:38:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist taking this shot of nene goslings coming to see what I was going to put in their coop.

Then there was the magpie goose who comes to honk at me when I wheel the feed cart into the Field. Yesterday he decided we're not friends and kept challenging me and nipped me once on the calf.

Guess who having dinner with some swan geese.

An alert nene family in their pen. When the goslings are big enough to be relatively safe from predators such as seagulls they'll go out to the grounds of the visitor's center.

A ride through the countryside

2011-04-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

It was a sunny day, so I hired a bike and took a ride north along the canal and then looped back along the Severn River. Thought you might enjoy a vicarious ride on a lovely English Sunday.

A section of public footpath.

I shared one road with this woman riding horseback.

Along the Severn River

The Severn Estuary at low tide.....

is very wide.

From this angle it looks like they have a different way of getting to church.

A good day

2011-04-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

This magpie goose decided to help himself.

I had a good day. Most of the days are varied, including feeding birds and assorted odds and ends. Today I fed ducks, geese and swans, helped clean a pool, hauled some turf, helped capture a red-crested pochard with string down its throat (it came out okay), helped with catching some white-winged ducks that needed to be inoculated.

Feeding out is like being Santa Claus. Some of the birds get excited.

Above: Red-breasted goose Below: Laysan Teal

A Cape Barren Goose wondering, "What are you doing in my territory?"

To fly or not to fly?

2011-04-11T09:54:00.000-07:00

Walking around the grounds at the Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, one sees swans, shelducks, mallards and tufted ducks coming and going; there's the impression that all the birds are free to come and go. The fences that contain the birds in their respective collections are barely two-feet tall, so inconspicuous that unless you're a toddler you are not even aware of them. But the majority of the birds are not free. The law requires they be contained either by netting overhead or rendered flightless. Its so subtle that I am sure that reality eludes most visitors.

If you look carefully you can see the longer primary feather on the left wing of this pinioned nene, but not the right.

A walk into Slimbridge village

2011-04-11T01:54:00.000-07:00

II thought you might like a look around Slimbridge. A week ago I walked into he village of Slimbridge to buy some stamps and took these pictures along the way.They'll give you an idea of the area. The drive into the Wildfowl and Wetlands Center is lined with daffodils right now. Then the road crosses a canal, which is at least six feet above the surrounding country side. It runs out into the Severn Estuary a few miles south of Slimbrdge and goes north past Gloucester. There's nice path along it which I enjoy walking along in the evenings.

There's a pub on the canal and a cafe that also rents bikes. Farther towards town is a dairy. The steeple in the church in the middle of town. That's it.

Cranes...

2011-04-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

Friday I was included on an outing for some volunteers who work with visitors here at the center. We drove south about an hour to a place called Somerset Levels, an old river valley now a drained peat marsh. Last August, 21 cranes, that had been reared (at Slimbridge) from eggs collected in Germany, were released here. Cranes disappeared in England over 400years ago as the result of hunting and habitat destruction.

We walked across the farm where there is a blind from which we hoped to see some birds. At first there were none in sight, though a group on Monday had gotten a good view of them. Then someone spotted them flying in the distance. All 18 of the surviving birds could be seen in the distance a thousand feet or more over a dirt field. Damon, who is in charge of the Great Crane Project, said he hadn't seen them flying so high before. For the 20 minutes or more that we watched them through binoculars they flew together, staying in the hot air rising over the field. I imagined what it must feel like for them to feel a thermal lifting them higher into the warm spring air and to be able to see all the way to the sea. It was so moving for me to watch, knowing this was the first time cranes had thermaled above the English countryside since about 1550! It was the same emotion I feel seeing nene fly, knowing how close they came to extinction.

They eventually started to descend, flying close enough so that we could faintly hear them calling to one another before they landed in a distant field. Afterwards we visited two other reserves. We got to see a pair of grebes feeding their three young ones and many waterfowl bathing and enjoying an unseasonably warm spring day. Very sublime!

A Smew I Knew...

2011-04-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

It was another warm, sunny day today. Very unseasonable they say, but no one is complaining! I had a nice, varied day. Got to feed the birds in the Outside Duckery, which is a series of pens for breeding birds and rearing out young ones. Right now it is occupied mostly by breeding birds, including Koloa, Laysan, yellow-billed, Pacific grey, Chinese spot-billed, St. Georgia pintail and winged-faced wood ducks, maned and Abyssinian blue-winged geese, a pair of Japanese Cranes, an East African Crested Crane, red shoveler and European shoveler. Their pens are mostly planted in long grass. There are also smew, a sea duck from northern Europe and Russia. Its fun to watch them diving for their food in their large pool. It was nice to take my time in the cool morning air to quietly make the rounds, feeding them and listening to the call of birds around.

Afterwards we all went to dig up around the flamingo nests to give them loose dirt to work into their nests, which are little mesas of mud.

I also got to help let out four nene goslings that have been in the duckery, It was their first time out in fresh air, sunshine and green grass. They had fixed up a moveable coop for them so they can still go inside and stay warm.

2011-04-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

I got to start and end my day doing the feeding rounds of the ducks with Duane, clearly the birds' favorite human. I got to see a small gang of Laysan ducks with their distinctive white eye rings. They were eager to feed on the mix of wheat and duck pellets that Duane cast into their pen. My favorites are the white-faced whistling ducks, who give a joyful chorus of whistles when they see Duane and the cart approaching. In addition to catering, Duane checks for any problems with the birds. There's one male goose with a drooping wing that later they find has been broken, perhaps by doing wing battle with another male. It's that time of the year for fighting for dominance. He points out a nene that's in love with a swan goose; not a welcomed pairing here where they strive to keep breeds from hybridizing.

Phoebe, with whom I will be working, shows me around the aviculture pens and duckery. A few nene goslings are huddled in the warmth of the heat lamp in one brooder. Soon the dozens of brooding pens will be filled with hatchlings. In the incubator room she shows me one nene gosling pipping out. It has made its way over 1/3 around the perimeter of the egg, and gives soft peeps through the 1/4-inch line it's breaking with its bill. It's the first hatching I have seen in real life. We look at the dozens of pens for breeding and rearing birds. In one she points out a clump of grass where a koloa duck is nesting. Phoebe also takes me to their isolation pens where there are two lots of birds waiting to be added to the collection. They'll be quarantined for a few weeks to make sure they don't bring any new diseases into the collection.

In the afternoon I do the rounds again with Duane. The west wind has picked up and ruffles the water in the ponds. We move along faster. I see at least ten mallard matings in that time. Mallards are ubiquitous here, flying in to feed and enjoy the ponds. They try to scare off mallards with a hand-held white flag. I see anywhere from two to five drakes chasing a hen. Only mallards mate in this brutal way and Duane reports that koloa and Laysan ducks are not exempt, so they try to keep a high ratio of females to males to keep the females from being overwhelmed.

Arrived in Slimbridge!

2011-04-04T07:51:00.000-07:00

After four days of travel I finally made it to Slimbridge day-before-yesterday. Yesterday I went for a walk around the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) Center

view of the grounds

and saw more ducks, geese and swans than I have ever seen before. I recognized Konrad Lorenz's beloved greylag geese,

greylag goose

and the barnacle geese, bar-headed geese

bar-headed geese in foreground

and red-breasted geese

that were featured in the movie Winged Migration. I saw many nene geese too, their right wings foreshortened (pinioned) to render them flightless as is required by law. I watched a young boy crouch down and extend his hand with food toward a nene. He was thrilled when it ate what he dribbled on the ground.

Of course it's against the law to feed nene in Hawaii to keep wild birds from getting too used to humans. Still there is something poignant--and I think important--in seeing that connection made between human and animal.

It was Mother's Day and sunny and warm, so there were many families and lots of children visiting. I watched a little girl in a pink jacket toddling after some ducks, pointing and jabbering away with a big smile on her face.

human family meets nene family

The motto on the back of staff shirts says "Preserve, Protect and Inspire" and I was inspired by watching youngsters connecting with birds and truly enjoying it. I found myself wondering how we can do the same for our Hawaiian species. After two hours I reached overload before I got all the way around the circuit, so I left the rest for another day.
This morning I met Sparky the head of aviculture and some of the other people in that department and had a look around their pens and brooding and incubation rooms. The breeding pens are large and the birds there and in the Center seem content and unstressed. Tomorrow I will start work.