More new ducks

There has been a bit of a duck changeover on the smallholding. The Pekin ducks had grown into brutes, just trampling right over the netting I erected to protect my vegetables.

They had to go!

But ducks are an integral part of my slug control. So I turned to the interweb, typing in "best ducks for a vegetable plot".

The overwhelming winning breed was Khaki Campbells.

I hadn't realised that most Khaki Campbells actually reside in the West of Britain, but it didn't take me too long to locate an advert from over this side of the country.

In fact they were on a smallholding down near Lakenheath, along a road which I used to visit to see Britain's last remnant population of Golden Orioles. Sadly they have gone now.

We took the chance to take the dogs on an adventure, walking them along the river at Santon Downham. This stretch of river has otters and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers but alas we didn't see either.

Onto the smallholding and there were about 80 Khaki Campbells to choose from, all ducks. They were in muddy conditions and it was all a bit smelly! They weren't tame either so we just took the first three we could catch. Fortunately nobody ended up face down in the mud!



Khaki Campbells are a small breed of duck. They are not fancy, but hopefully will do their job well in the veg plot without causing too much destruction. Here they are on their first day, desperate to hide away in their new house.

ed     A couple of weeks have passed now. The Khakis didn't come out of their house for a day or two and I eventually had to eject them. Then I had to fish them out of the pond as their feathers weren't in a good enough state to repel the water.
But they have now settled in, made friends with the two old ducks we have, and are enjoying life in the veg plot. Their feathers have improved so they can now use the pond. They have started laying eggs for us too.

Meanwhile we managed to sell four of the five Pekin ducks. Unluckily for him, the buyers didn't want a drake so he is soon destined for the table. The four females had just started laying whopping great eggs, so they were a good buy. They have gone to a smallholding where the owners do B&B so lots of people will get to enjoy them.

From the Himalayas to Shetland

Wondering where I've been for a while?

Here.



Makes a change from The Fens!
It's the third time I've visited this area of Northern India for birdwatching, which was very nice as I'd seen most of the bird species before and was more able to focus on enjoying them rather than chasing new ticks.

But a conversation in the middle of the holiday had me seriously twitchy.
We had just discovered that after four days of no phone data we could hitch a ride on the WiFi of another hotel in the mountain village. With our newfound contact with the outside world, the conversation went something like this:
Rob: There's a Scops Owl on Orkney
Me (after mulling this over for a while): What's a Scops Owl doing in Britain at this time of year? Where is it?
Rob: Bixter
Me: Isn't that on Shetland?
Rob: Oh, it's not a Scops Owl, it's a Tengmalm's
Me: TENGMALM'S ***!!!**???***!!!

This news didn't spoil my holiday, but it did have me thinking about what to do when I got back to the UK. As the days went on I went from deciding not to go at all to looking up flights for the end of the week after I got back. I would need to put a few days of work in first.

We flew back on the Monday, arriving back on the farm at about 9pm, my body clock on 2.30 in the morning.

I went to work on the Tuesday but crumbled and ended up driving to Aberdeen on Tuesday night for an early morning flight onto Shetland.

By Wednesday morning I was watching a Tengmalm's Owl.

The garden where the Tengmalm's Owl eventually settled for a few days.

Highly nocturnal, the owl needed refinding every morning as it changed it's chosen roost tree.

This made it even more important to make the pilgrimage before the twitch tailed off - numbers were needed. 

Spot The Owl - It took some finding in such a large garden

Every now and then a bird arrives which really gets the twitching juices flowing. Hugely rare, a checkered history which meant just about every birder in Britain still needed it, an owl and a fantastic location in Shetland.

What a start to the year.