Goosanders

24 January 2014

Horbury Bridge, West Yorkshire

On the Calder, below the old weir, a lone male goosander is looking around in an anxious manner. After thirty seconds or perhaps a minute, the female appears and they feed together, dipping their heads then diving in unison.

Like grebes, goosanders sit low in the water. Seen from up on the bridge, you can see they have a boat-like shape, designed for stability rather than speed, like the traditional lifeboat. They have a shorter neck than the great-crested grebe

Squirrel nibbled cones

I picked these cones up on our last visit to the plantations at Langsett. Squirrels, probably grey, as that's all we've seen in the area, have nibbled the scales off these conifer cones in order to extract the seeds.