More Occasional Notes from a Dog Walker
19 January 2022
Unusually for me out late afternoon with DtD (I normally do the morning "run"). Lovely sunshine but not yet warmth. Gone 4 o'clock but still daylight when we got home!
Cygnet still on the flood but looking whiter – perhaps beginning to moult into adult plumage. Sizeable flotilla of geese cruising and gulls whirling and swooping.
Dot the Dog showed her annoyance with the bulldozers on the building site by doing a very passable impression of an All Blacks' pre-match Haka – didn't make any difference but it made us both feel better.
This morning we had a visit from the local jay – perched in the tree in our front garden. In really hard weather it feeds from the nuts at the back.
23 January 2022
Cold, grey and dank. It didn't curb Dot the Dog's enthusiasm for playing ball – indeed a few days ago she found a splendid red ball with yellow polka dots in the field and insisted on bringing it home. We are trying to find a way of "losing" it without her noticing...
The sheep have come for winter grazing. They are in the field opposite Mount Farm. This morning one of them was standing on the skyline beyond the oak tree with a crow perched on its back. It wandered off slowly with the crow riding it like a horse.
Dot the Dog is interested in the sheep. I expect they remind her of her puppyhood on a farm halfway up Kinder Scout. It was rather a ramshackle affair – the pups slept in the bottom drawers of the kitchen units (they were left open for the purpose). Dot used to chase the sheep and was deemed not suitable for shepherding – so we got her! Her siblings started training and were apparently sold on to continue their education for several hundred pounds each
The cygnet seems quite content on the field-flood with its friends the gulls, coots and ducks. A squadron of the ducks flew over the house this morning, probably heading for Redesmere or Capesthorne judging by the direction of flight. Perhaps they felt safe going back after yesterday morning's (very audible) shoot was over.
Following this afternoon's "run" I gather a second cygnet has arrived – I hope it's of the opposite sex to the first, cob or pen, because swans pair for life. How romantic!
I see the building site has acquired some large diameter concrete pipes. It would be a shame if "our" flood was drained as well as theirs.
Horrid of Henbury