Flying Hither and Thither

 

For once, it wasn’t my own travel that inspired this, though there’s a bit of that later on. I’ve previously mentioned the strange disaster that has struck my pond, in which all my fish either died simultaneously of some mysterious disease, or, much more likely to judge by the gory evidence left around were eaten by a predator of some sort, almost certainly an otter.  A few days ago, nevertheless I had a couple of visitors who gave me quite a shock when I heard their quacks. It was a a pair of mallard ducks, very possibly the same pair who attempted to move in last year and did at least effect an entry.

Since then the pond has been netted (against otters !) and this obviously completely discombobulated the female mallard.

She sat on a rock wistfully surveying her possible home in the most disconsolate way, while her mate with an obviously more realistic frame of mind sat on a nearby tree, clearly anxious, to judge by the quacks, to be off to the next possible site. Why my little pond should be so attractive when there is a canal running through the village and two quite big lakes in All Cannings a couple of miles away, I can’t imagine. But so it is. And you don't expect mallards to be in trees either.

There’s obviously something else that's strange going on as well. For soon after I noticed (the remains of ?) a small bird nest, complete with egg on the outside sill of our kitchen window. What it was doing there again a complete mystery. There is a bat-box tucked up underneath the thatch that blue-tits sometimes have a go at, but it only has a narrow slit in it – too narrow I would have thought for this to have fallen through, although it remains the most likely explanation.

Other visitors are much less welcome. I had proof positive that the bluebell destroyer was indeed a Muntjac deer, as one ran past me hen I was out in the wooded area, going like the clappers, but, curiously running in circles, hopefully in a panic that might dissuade it from coming back. Regardless I am now erecting defences to my Broad Beans against the wretched thing.

I had a lecture at the Museum in Devizes, listening to it rather than giving it, that is. It was on graffiti in the now abandoned Church in the old village of Imber in the middle of Salisbury plain which was closed down ion the war to allow more extensive wartime training. Graffiti are scratch marks in the stonework, which are sometimes quite extensive, but which all too often are now only very faintly visible to the naked eye. They become dramatically more visible when you deploy the right techniques and technology  which of course they did. I say 'they' because actually this was largely a group meeting of graffiti hunters. The lecturer obviously knew half the audience and freely admitted that this was a lecture by a nerd to a lot of other nerds, but it was fascinating all them same both for the event and its contents.  And certainly made a change from my other preoccupations.

Otherwise things have been quite quiet, apart from the very unsettled weather, but I have been beavering away finally getting the Annex finished – that flood put my plans back by at least two weeks, and I still haven’t quite finished it, preparing for the oncoming hordes for Easter and generally preparing for what looks like a very busy May and June when I will also by flying about hither and thither, quacking faintly !