Yesterday's Goslings Are Missing!
Photos: 27 April 2016
Text: 14 March 2026
I opened the bedroom curtains just before 08:18 and picked up the camera to take my first image of the day. It was the pair of geese on our neighbour's field that had caught my eye. What were the two adult geese doing there, with neither of the goslings with them?
The mystery was no clearer when I took a walk around the grounds after taking an early lunch. I had seen that the adults appeared to be back, at rest on the bank of the lake by the holiday cottages next door. I walked over the bridge to take a picture of them from the main island.
The mystery wasn't that the pair on the cottage lawns were still missing their goslings, it was that I found that there was still a pair on our neighbour's lawn. My first two pictures had been taken at 13:19 and 13:20. It was not until 13:37 that I took the other pair on our neighbour's lawn.
I then walked back from the south eastern corner of our grounds, briefly stopping to take, at 13:38, a picture of the bridge I had crossed to take the first two pictures.
I walked past the end of the bridge, back towards the house and then through the gate that allows us onto the cottage lawns where, at 13:41, I took a picture of "The Tree House", followed a minute later by a second picture, which included the first pair I had photographed, now in the water.
Part of the reason for taking the last two pictures, was to be certain that there were no goslings about. They were not seen again. I must presume they were taken as prey by some creature overnight. Indeed, I took no further photographs of geese for the rest of the season, so it seems the adults just moved on.
The other part of the reason for taking the pictures was to look at the Tree House from the cottage owner's perspective, with its latest additions, the reed and trellis panels. I had been frustrated when attending the the September meeting of the cottage owners as some felt it spoiled their view, expressing it in a way that suggested they had the right to complain. I was certain that by the height of summer the structure would be near invisible.
