Our beautiful lake attracts lots of wildlife and most recently we had a Canada goose nesting on one of the islands. We'd been keeping an eye on her for several weeks and then one morning Neil spotted her on the water being followed by several fluffy, little goslings!
Eager to get some photos, I nipped out with my camera and using a zoom lens, (so as not to disturb them), I got some lovely shots.
Every time we walked around the lake we'd look for the new little family, but then one morning they were knowhere to be seen.
We hoped that they had simply moved on and we were sad to loose our new guests. But knowing that Nature can be cruel and that there are lots of predators for such delicate little creatures we didn't hold out much hope for them.
It wasn't until that evening that our son Tom spotted a bedraggled little gosling all on his own right by our house. We watched from indoors but there was no sign of the parents and I walked around the lake to see if I could spot them. We didn't want to interfere but we were also aware that the gosling was exhausted and the crows and magpies were showing interest in him.
Eventually, I approached the gosling and as I knelt down some distance away from him, he started running towards me and leapt into my hands! It was the most adorable thing ever, and the moment I had hold of him he promptly fell asleep!
Well I couldn't just put such a fragile creature down and leave him outside in the elements, so we brought him indoors and he slept snuggled up on me for over an hour. We then made him a bed in a cage for overnight, with a warming pad and a fake fur wrap, as the towel seemed too rough for such a little bundle of fluff, and we offered him some water to drink.
When I awoke early the next morning it was with some trepidation that I approached his cage to check under the blanket, but before I could lift it to look at him, I heard the pitter patter of little webbed feet...He was still alive!
In fact he was full of beans and hisssing at me..That's gratidude for you!
With a stroke of luck we had also spotted his family back on the lake, so we dashed outside to reunite them with their little lost baby.
We weren't sure what would happen and whether they would accept him back, but as we grew closer little 'Ryan gosling', ( it was a toss up between that or Bruce the Goose), started peeping and calling to his parents. Then once we were close enough I put him down and he ran and jumped off of the jetty and into the lake, back with his family once more.( In fact you can see a video of that beautiful moment on our Instagram of Facebook feeds).
So although I would never advocate interfering with wildlife...On this occasion, there was, thankfully, a very happy ending.
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