2012 New arrivals

3 days old

The first of this year's brood have arrived -- 2 early hatchers appeared from the incubator this week, both are from white ducks but as you can see have mixed parentage!  The dark duckling has a lot of yellow on his/her underside so will be an interesting mix as it grows up.  They were out in the garden yesterday under lights to keep them warm but as they are only 3 days old they are being well looked after and have not come out today as it is a bit wet and miserable, we hope to see them again soon.

Yesterday we had the West Midlands Search and Rescue team here with their Ambulance and life boat - they talked to lots of people to show what they do, covering both land and water rescues.    They are a charity so always need funds to ensure that they can keep their equipment up to specification to react when needed (they helped out when Upton got flooded I heard them say).http://www.wmsar.org.uk/cms/index.php

There have been a lot of people around so far this Easter weekend - some of the visitors are new to the centre and have come to the Vintage Steam Gathering that is on down the road on the B4090 Droitwich road Junction on the way here.  We are expecting a busy day tomorrow too and the restaurant team have carvery lunch on until 4pm.

Allo Lola!

Spring is coming and we are all feeling it out on the pond, there is a lot if 'pairing off' with the mallards and even my "white" (am I allowed to say this?) duck friends are starting to move into groups rather than sticking with the larger group.  At this time of year it is very dangerous if you don't keep your wits about you -- the mallards are particularly daft when they are 'in love' and they will keep heading off into the field to 'be alone'... this is very silly with the number of dogs, foxes and humans that are walking the fields!!  Paddy -- the golden lab who lives next door gets quite beside himself when he see them in the field just waiting to be chased!

Many of the females ducks are now laying eggs and the sadly the crows are already moving in however, Mick the Site Manager, has rescued the first batch this week and is setting them in the incubator to hatch so we will have ducklings this year all being well.  Hanbury First school are also going to try an hatch us a few too so I am sure we will have the pitter patter of tiny webbed feet in a few weeks.....watch this space.

Lola meeting the crowd (with Linda her new handler)

We had a new visitor this week - Lola -- she is working for the Guide Dogs for the Blind and is designated to be a brood bitch.  Linda Atkins (who has been puppy training for GDs for years) will look after her and will be helping with the pups and Linda will get to keep her as a pet she has "done her bit", so she is a lucky girl as Linda is a great "Mum".   Lola had only just arrived to her new home when she was invited up to the Jinney Ring along with Marley (who is going to be a Guide Dog when he has been fully trained) to help promote the "Go Walkies " event that is being run from the Craft Centre gardens on 1st April.   We are expecting to keep up with Lola's antics and life and will keep you up to date too.

Marley (the lab) and Lola with posing with Lyndsey and Polly from the gift shop.

Around the Craft Centre, activity is generally increasing as the weather improves -- the new pergola/rose arch is has been stained and is finished ready for planting which should happen in the next couple of weeks.  There are lots of other garden preparations going on too, ready for the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee, but that will have to wait a little until next weekend is finished, as Mother's Day is always very popular here and we are expecting to see a lot of people in the gardens next Sunday.  There is a special Mother's day breakfast in the morning and then an all day carvery with flowers for all mums. 

Xmas is coming

Another beautiful day in the garden today -  difficult to think it will be December soon!

One sign that Winter is coming is that the three horses left the field this week as it is getting too wet underfoot and cold at night.  Warm stables were sounding very attractive!  We will miss them.

13 duckings - growing up, now rampaging around the gardens!

The 'rescued' ducklings have come on leaps and bounds since my last diary note, they have been let out to play in the gardens this week. They are quite adventurous and have explored the entire garden swimming on both ponds - normally duckings are a bit slower at getting off the top pond! This lot are a bit cheeky, probably being a large crowd makes them brave!

I did have to follow them out on to the car-park yesterday, just to see what they were looking at.  We all got herded back into the garden quite quickly, but not before I had caught glimpse of Christmas preparations.  Lights are going up and being tested and I can see that the shop has lots of Christmas stuff out.

Outside the gift shop

There is a late night shopping evening tonight 17th Nov (gift shop only) and all the lights are going to be switched on next week with a Christmas "light up" evening when all the craft units will be open and there will be lots of Christmas food and other things.  Worcestershire's own "Green Santa" is coming along to help one of our regular visitors Rachel Johnston to switch on the lights.  Rachel is a wonderful lady who is often comes here from Worcester with her carers to watch us on the pond, she is in a wheel chair, so can sometime not come on the grass, she seems to enjoy our antics though!  There will be music, chestnuts and other christmassy type things I am told!



  

Late arrivals

I could not believe my eyes today as I spied little 'dots' on the bottom pond -- 15 new ducklings fresh off the island with a very diligent mum (but let's face it how can you control 15 babies on your own?).

The garden was pretty busy today therefore it was not long before they created quite a stir and were being fed by the children.  They did get cold quite quickly though, so Mum rounded them up onto the side and sat on them to warm them up.  Fairly soon  humans arrived and tried to catch them all -- they managed to catch all but 3, and of course Mum who was far too quick!

The ducklings are very late arrivals in the season and, without some help developing, will not get their feathers in time for the frosts - even I know enough to accept that the humans are being 'cruel to be kind' by putting the youngsters into a heated pen and feeding them up.  This way they should all have a very good chance of survival.  It is still possible that they will catch the Mum and the other 3 and put them in too -- if she is not too quick.  The pen is in the garden next to the pond so the ducklings can be watched over by all of us.

Loads of people here yesterday and today - some are here for children's pottery classes, some are just starting shopping for Christmas (stock now out) and many just enjoying the mild weather in the garden.   We love it - we are getting plenty of duck food!

Floss the Chestnut horse has been popping her head over the fence a bit today too.  She is feeling much better now after having a big tooth out last week - what a whopper it was, took a long time to sort out!  She is getting ready to go to her winter stable soon - when the weather changes.

What a shower!

It has been a really active week at the craft centre, firstly the sculpture trail launch and then yesterday an evening wedding party.  I heard it said that this was our first "American Bride" and later, when the party were in the garden before dinner, I found out that this was the "English bit" of their nuptials. The Bride and Groom had married in America last week in a garden ceremony with blazing sunshine.  Yesterday they had their second celebration in real English style - everyone was in their finest regalia (they all looked great, especially the Bride) - dodging the raindrops.  In fact during the evening we probably had more rainfall in the garden than we have in the entire month, including some thunder and lightening.    The weather did not appear to worry anyone - they ate dinner and partied in really good spirits, while we ducks danced in the rain - gosh we did enjoy it!

Dodging raindrops - Nick and Lindsey with family

We have the courtyard marquee at the centre until after the bank holiday and I understand that there is a wedding and special event display on show until it goes, so people can see what goes on here, or what could go on here!

The courtyard marquee display

A bit of sad news today - the mother of the ducklings on the pond is now down to two left on the water (four are still being brought up by the humans), one of the ducklings just disappeared (the crows we think) and the other just keeled over, although we have a suspicion he may have got under someone's foot as he had been getting far to close to people!

August on the pond

Do you remember the tiny ducklings incubated by Hanbury First School,"Rosie and Jim"?  They are now nearly fully grown now and are jolly big ducks!  Here they are (left) with their friends "Bubble and Squeak" (right) who are not quite as old but quite a lot smaller -  "Bubble" is the same bred of duck (Pekin) as Rosie and Jim but we don't think he will ever catch them up - the only explanation we have come up with is the extremely good care that they had at school!  ("Squeak" is a Mini -Appleyard and he/she will never be large).  They are all still going back into their pen every night - but methinks that this is just because they have a ready supply of food rather than for safety!

During the week 4 new ducklings were spotted on the top pond - they appeared to be on their own with no mum offering protection.  They asked for help from many of my colleagues but none were that interested. Eventually they got cold and just sat on the edge of the pond shivering, fortunately one of the humans spotted them and has now put them in the pen under a hot lamp and they are all fine. It was all a bit of a puzzle though - as to where they came from.  The mystery was solved two days later when another 4 ducklings appeared - very similar in colour to the first batch, this time however the mum was with them.  The poor mum must have hatched one batch of ducklings early and, knowing the others were still incubating, had to decide which batch to look after.  The next four out are being very well looked after as you can see below!  Happily the first four should survive too, with a little human intervention.  I wonder if mum will recognise them when she see them again?

Proud mum with 4 multicoloured ducklings

It has been quite a busy week in the gardens again this week with lots of visitors.  On Tuesday Jets Crafts were here doing decopatch and pottery painting for children in the courses room and Mark from Marksman leisure was here with what looked like giant pods.  It tuns out that the children went inside to shoot each other with laser guns - looked great fun - he is coming back!. On Wednesday and Friday the garden was full of lovely music from violin busker Jo Lucas.

The laser "pods"

Rosie and Jim settle in

Rosie and Jim in the big pen

As rumoured the new ducklings turned up a two days ago - 2 of them had been born at Hanbury First School and have been living a life of luxury between the warm school class room and class teachers Miss Thorne  home.  They have been very well fed and watered and are now quite big ducklings.  The children have named them "Rosie and Jim" .

About a week later than Rosie and Jim were hatched, another smaller duckling hatched on its own at the Jinney Ring- this is a mini Silver Appleyard. Rather than keep the duckling on its own it went off to join Rosie and Jim at school, but because they were so big and rowdy they frightened the smaller duckling. This duckling was named "Squeak" due the the noise it was making!.

Squeak has some black in his feathers

The final arrival was a very late and unexpected duckling again hatched at the Jinney Ring. Because this one is so new it is not much bigger than Squeak and at the moment and they have been put together for company in a smaller pen -- he/she will grow to be like Rosie and Jim eventually, but hopefully the ducks will be firm friends by then so size will not matter!    The children have very aptly named this new one "Bubble".

Hanbury First school Reception class came over with teacher Miss Thorne to see the ducklings had settled in OK.  I think they went away happy that they were comfortable.   The children fed us bigger ducks too so we hope they visit regularly!

Lots of Ministers!

This weekend started badly with pouring rain, not that it bothered us ducks much (except it puts people off feeding us!), but we knew that we were to be having another wedding here later in the day so we crossed out wings for the day to brightened -- it worked and the sun was out by the time they arrived at about 5pm and once again we got a good look at everyone while pictures were taken.

It turned out that we had 3 minsters with us for the wedding reception - one performed the ceremony, one said grace and the third was the Groom himself (Ron) who retired recently.  Probably because he was an ex-minister, the Groom said he was actually looking forward to his speech and performed like a professional, even had a microphone! (Most of the time Grooms hate this bit!).   The Bride (Rebecca) looked radiant as did her Bridesmaid, Nicola and her family who are all very close to Rebecca. This group are all 'regulars' at the Jinney Ring, so we were delighted to see them (they all brush up really well!).  The party went on until about midnight and we had the ponds lights on so that we could have a good swim in the limelight too!

Next on the agenda we have a garden party (Sunday 24th) -- sounds like we are going to have to keep our heads down for this one with coconut shy, skittles, stocks as well as music on the agenda!

Bit of breaking news (literally)  -- 4 new ducklings are rumoured to have hatched and will be out in the garden next week.  Two of these have been hatched by Hanbury First School with their new incubator, can't wait to see them.

Finally -- an update on the ducks that went to the Vet -- one is fully back to health, rushing around with his mates, the other is still not walking very well at all but seems happy enough in herself, she is managing to get onto and off the water.  She seems to be sensible enough to sleep on the island to keep safe.  One thing for sure is that she has had enough of being caught by the humans and force fed anti-biotic, no-way is she being caught again!

A visit to the Vet

Two of my friends in the garden have been limping badly lately and have been confined to the pen in the hope that they recover naturally.  Sadly they have not got any better so they were taken off in a cardboard box yesterday and we feared the worst! Happily, it turned out that they had had a visit to the Vet and they are now back and taking medicine for their problems.  They both seem to be getting better and hope to be on the pond again soon.  (Neither is that happy about the medicine though -- tastes horrible!)

Confined to bed!

We have a bit of a mystery at the moment  -- several of my Indian Runner duck friends have disappeared very recently -- including the lovely new duckling that was protected for so long.  Some of my fellows think it is the fox, but I haven't seen any evidence of this and they are not very "meaty".  We are now all on alert, keeping a very good eye out watching comings and goings, foxes and people!

Worcester Arts Trail

Bank holidays are normally pretty good for bread consumption - plenty of people dropping in to see us no matter what the weather, but this year may be busier than normal as some of the artists here are inviting people in as part of the first ever Worcestershire Arts Trail which is on now until the end of bank holiday Monday.

To celebrate the start of the trail Stuart Fletcher and his team in Top Glass are 'ringing the changes' with new ornaments on the tree outside his workshop in the courtyard.  These glass bells work well inside and outside and can have clangers in or not, whatever you fancy!

We have local artist Ian Ridley here too for this period (in the meeting room) - he has some lovely landscapes on sale, and he does smile so don't worry about the photo!

Out on the ponds - the 2011 hatch are out and about, they really enjoyed their first swim and are now proving difficult to round up and put away again.  The only fear at the moment is that the moorhens attack them - they are still hatching their own chicks and are being very aggressive!

The 2011 hatch

The chickens have moved on to a new home this weekend so the new ducklings are now out in the big pen.  It is a big world for them at the moment and most of them are exploring with vigour, and have had their first swim.

There is one bird missing from the garden at the moment - Henry the Perigrin Falcon is missing - he went for a extra-curricular flight over a week ago during a flying demonstration and has not returned - the falconers are very worried about him as he was not bred to survive in the wild.

The news from the craft centre is that that Digital Wizardry the graphic design craft unit have moved on (to bigger premises, as they had outgrown the unit) and a new soap business is setting up.  Jorg Muschner whose new unit is called "The Blue Lemon" is making artisan soaps from natural ingredients.  He is due to open on 1st June but hopes to be making product before that time.

"Ducknap" !!! and Cows

Crime has occurred in my back yard! - someone has stolen 8 of the new ducklings from the pen in the middle of the garden.  We are all extremely shocked, and very sad about this. We sincelerly hope that the "Criminal" knows how to look after the little ones as they are only a week old and need a lot of warmth, proper chick food (not corn or bread) and plenty of water at this stage of their lives.  If they get wise they will just return them to the pen quickly, otherwise I have heard the owners of the Centre saying that they will be looking back on the CCTV footage, whatever this means.  It is sad that humans can be so uncaring and take these ducklings out of such a lovely place to grow up.....

The Cows and the Horse are here - I am told by the older ducks, that this is normal for this time of year and that I should get used to them peering at us over the fence and making a lot of noise.  They are all very young and are fascinated by everything new, as they have been inside all winter and it is all very exciting to them. (There is an absolutely beautiful black cow with such a pretty face that I am already very fond of).  The horse "Floss"  is already wooing the visitors in the centre and seems to spend most of her day "chatting" to the girls and boys. Wish I had a job like that!  She also seems to be taking the lead with cows and often leads the youngsters around the field at pace.

"Floss" is in charge of the young cows again

Some good, some bad

Sadly the 17 ducklings are now down to only 6.  The Moorhens have been particularly vicious this year and far worse that the crows (Mick, the site manager, did manage to "pepper" one of the crows so this probably put them off a bit). The big problem was that our Mother Duck just had too much to do watching all ot the babies once they started to get active! The good news is that 6 appears to be a managable number and Mum is particularly protective over them so they are growing up quite fast.

Stop Press - 32 new ducklings have just appeared in the cage in the garden - they have been incubated from the eggs rescued from around the Centre Gardens so should fit in well once they have grown a bit.  They are staying warm via a hot lamp (and by cuddling up).  There is a mixture of parentage to be seen, some yellows but quite a lot of blacks, greys and of course some mallards.

Come and see them before they get too big!

Everyone is talking about the forthcoming election in the garden at the moment - we are not too sure how the "cuts" will affect our corn supply or bread from the customers and we are a little bit worried.....

On Polling night they are holding a special "political" supper in the restaurant - no talk - just dishes that will have political names - could be fun as long as there is some for us too.  £12 for 2 courses.

How will she manage all these ducklings?

We have had our suspicions for a while now that one of the group was about to have a family - she has been missing at meal times and was no where to be seen.  Now we can see why... she has 17 ducklings under her wing and is trying very hard to keep control of them all at once - not an easy task.  There are alsorts of things for her to worry about - Moorhens (who are frightful bullies and jealous types), carion crow, foxes and people (who can get too close and step on them).

Looking at her brood she has clearly had a wild time of it with  black ones as well as all the yellows (which will be whites).

Rumour also has it that there are more on the way elsewhere - more ducks sitting and some of their eggs have also dissapeared into the incubator.

Now that the weather has improved and the evenings are a lot lighter we are seeing a lot more activity in the gardens and elsewhere.  This week there was a very smelly Curry Night in the restaurant on Thursday.   

Saturday and Sundays are nice too - several visitors are walking or cycling out early to have breakfast with us in the garden (9:30 - 11:45 Sat & Sun)

Coming up there is a Spanish night and a beer festival in May (in the gardens).  Should be fun - we love people watching (especially when they bring us bread).