Visit to Wardown Park, Luton

Wardown Park in Luton is my local spot for visiting the geese. I go for a run round there every Wednesday. On June 5th I spotted a family of six tiny yellow Canada goose goslings, which were the first goslings I'd seen at the lake for a number of years. The following week I saw them again, along with another Canada family with two goslings.

The pictures in this post were taken on June 30th, only 25 days after I first spotted the six new-born goslings. They are now much bigger, they grow so quickly!

The young goose the furthest to the right has already learned to bite the bum, and aggressively chased off a full-grown Canada that was trying to get some of of the seed that we'd given them.

One of the geese that I'm most interested in at Wardown is this one:

I think it's a Lesser snow goose. I thought from its colouring that it might be a hybrid, but I had a misconception from the name that snow geese were supposed to be pure white, which is incorrect. I think it's colouring is beautiful, it gives it a really distinctive look.

It's the only goose of its kind at the lake, and doesn't appear to have a mate. It seems sociable, and is usually hanging around with the Canadas. It is a bit larger than them, and seems quite dominant.

It can jump!

Another goose of interest is this one:

Deborah first spotted this one a few months ago. We initially thought that it might be a Bean goose, but now we think it might be a Pink-footed goose, either that or a Canada hybrid.

This time we saw two of them, so they must be a pair. Their feet are different colours, one has pinker feet and the other has pailer. Their beaks are much lighter coloured than the black beaks of the Canadas, and their feathers are a bit browner in colour.

We went for a walk round the lake and spotted the other two Canada goslings swimming with their parents:

Visit to Stratford-upon-Avon

We visited Stratford-upon-Avon for the second time this year. At Mary Arden's Farm we participated in goose herding, where we had to steer a gaggle of geese through an obstacle course. The sticks don't come into contact with the geese, they are just used to get in their way to steer them in the desired direction. Getting 8 geese to go in the same direction without one wondering off was quite a challenge, but Deborah and I managed it.

Later in the evening, we went to see The Taming of the Shrew at the Swan Theatre, which is on the banks of the River Avon, and saw (appropriately) a swan with a couple of young cygnets.

The next morning, there was a large goose population getting fed.

I was particularly interested in this goose, which looked like an Embden, but was hanging around with the Canadas, whereas all the other Embdens were together. It had some grey colouring, and may have been a hybrid.