Barnacle Goose

A LONE BARNACLE GOOSE stands by the canal on this, the first sunny morning we've had for a week or so. A wild goose away from the flock has a forlorn look. Perhaps it has a mate on eggs nearby. Most likely this 'wild' bird was originally an escape from a wildfowl collection (or its ancestors were).

In the joints of the old stonework of the Figure of Three locks, there is a colony of Hart's Tongue Fern. Nearer the lock gates, where it is damper, the stonework is covered with the thalli ('leaf pads') of a green liverwort.

A female Blackbird collects dry grasses on the herb bed and takes them to her nest in a fork in the hawthorn hedge in next door's garden. She has chosen a south-facing spot where the hedge is backed by a larch lap panel.

Looking into the wood I can see a white pony running round and round in a tight circle. Lost? Then I see the woman who is training it.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail;'richard@daelnet.co.uk'