Could the Duck house be used this Year?
Posted: 8 January 2015
One of the effects of having cut all the reed down around the edge of the island is that now, not only can see see easily all the way across to the peninsula beyond, but also that the geese seem to use it. this morning one was seen inspecting the "Duck House".
One of the things we want to discourage is the geese, so it's unlikely that we will repeat the reed cutting every year. Certainly, it was noticeable that last year the geese came ashore far less often than they did in 2013, when we inherited grounds that were closely mowed to make it a more suitable environment for fishing.
Our plans include the removal of the fishing stand that you can see in this picture. Those on the island were of much poorer construction than others around the site, using just thin sheets of salvaged plywood for the platform.
One of the discoveries that we made during the reed cutting was that we may have killed off the one Mountain Ash that is found on the island. You can just make out, in the close up below, how the tree tie had never been removed long after the stake was past doing its job.
The stake now leans against the tree, having rotted at ground level. The thick ribbon, used to secure the tree in its early days, has "strangled" the tree, restricting it to about three quarters of its natural diameter. We can only wait and see whether it will recover.
