In this episode, I reflect on the intricate dynamics within our alpaca herd and the wildlife that shares our farm. Observing their interactions during breakfast reveals their social structures, while the arrival of swallows and swans captures the seasonal shifts in behaviour. I delve into the delicate balance of territory among species and share poignant moments reflecting on the loss of Hermione, our matriarch, and the emotional challenges faced in caring for and then losing aging animals like Freds.
Despite the heartache of these losses, the discovery of a robin's nest offers a hopeful reminder of nature's resilience and the cycles of life.
Alpaca Tribe is hosted and produced by Steve Heatherington of Waterside Voices.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcripts
[0:00] Welcome to the Alpaca Tribe. I'm Steve Hetherington.
[0:13] Hi, Steve here, and welcome to the podcast for Alpaca people. You are so welcome, and it's great to see you again. Have you noticed how things stay the same until they don't? Another day another feed the same as always maybe with different weather maybe one of them has sat down slightly awkwardly maybe one is missing, let's start with a quick valley update.
[0:48] I'm down with the girls having breakfast and actually there's plenty of girls. You just, poor old Prydwen getting squeezed out. There's a bunch of buckets and they kind of worked through the peas first and then they've gone back for the rest. And I put some Alpharae, chopped alfalfa with a bit of molasses on it. It's nice, I enjoy that. So they've been moving around and it's just the interaction and that kind of level of, acceptance and irritation who are you going to let oh Betsy what are you doing, she's forcing out Pridwin well away from the bucket it's not about the food anymore.
[1:36] So it's a bit, shuffling around just the number of heads and also who's going to be allowed in and who's not. The acceptance and also the irritation. I'm just moving out of the wind here. So they're kind of moving around and doing their thing in different places, which they do anyway. But it's just interesting. It's a slower interaction today. So I was just able to notice the spread of animals. Oh, you've come to join as well, have you? There you go. Hello, how are you? So they're a little bit subdued. But they're doing all right. A grey day today. We've had some interesting, nice weather and windy weather and that kind of stuff. Well, the swallows are back. We've got about, I don't know, they keep moving so fast it's difficult to count them. But there's at least six, probably nine, eight, nine, something like that, whizzing round on the lake and then whizzing over here into the stables. I can't see, I haven't seen the droppings on the floor as the give away. That's what shows where they are and what they're up to. And I've not seen the droppings yet, but they could well be busy doing some rebuilding or starting a new one. Who knows?
[3:06] The first, I don't know how to refer to it. So the alpha male, Goose, and his mate, she's on the nest and has been for weeks now. So she's doing well and they're kind of getting around and they do their little cruising together now and again. He'll come over and sometimes he comes from the middle of the lake, he'll kind of call her off the, call her, call to her. And she comes off the nest and they steam towards each other and then honk, honk, honk, honk. and they kind of honk at each other and, glide in unison. It's delightful. It's really lovely. And we've got the pair of swans. They've been really busy. You know, I said they were looking at, they hadn't settled on a nesting site. Well, they have now. And it's right in the middle of the lake. There's a, what we call the Reed Island. It's bulrushes. And they've been dragging all the dead stuff and pulling it into a pile. They tend to favor dropping it over their left shoulder. So they're a bit like a, well here in the UK we call them JCBs but it's the mechanical digger with a long arm in a bucket and it digs and then lifts it back and this one's got a very similar movement, and it reaches over.
[4:29] Oh hello, aren't you beautiful just trying to work out what you were there's a beautiful song thrush just swooped and landed on top of a fence post nearby It'll sing in the background for us, I'm sure. So the swans have been setting up and pulling all this stuff into, they gradually cleared an area, so there's clear water now, in the middle of this kind of island. It isn't an island currently because it's submerged anyway. But the dead bulrushes and stuff, they've pulled all the bits and they've worked really hard. And it's both the male and the female doing all the work. And sometimes the female goes off and it's the male who's doing all the work, dragging the material together and putting it into a pile and then the female started sitting on this mound and the raised mound is typical of swans that's what they do so it's right in the middle of the lake so it's a very secure place actually it's really good, but when she's sat on the nest he gets off and he does his male thing and he's chasing off the alpha male goose now there's another pair who've been loitering and they've stayed around they get chased from pillar to post and get moved around all the time and they.
[5:39] The alpha male goose goes over and chases the swan. Interestingly, the goose sometimes will get into a situation where he's kind of leading. He gets chased by the swan and they kind of lean forward and they thrust with their feet in a kind of pulsing movement. And he's got big webbed feet so he can gain on the little goose who's got little webbed feet. And so the goose every night again has to kind of scoot along and have a little fly. But sometimes the swans will fly and this thing, they're quite silent but big and white suddenly coming at you. It's a bit intimidating to say the least and they get their wings up and they make themselves look big and they cruise and they... So they keep pushing the geese out of the water. The geese spend a lot of time out of the water anyway, grazing on the grass. The swans spend a lot of time on the water and they're going down and getting the weed and stuff from deeper down. Long necks are really helpful.
[6:44] And, yeah, so they're kind of moving around. So there's other pair, they haven't been able to settle anywhere. I'm not sure they're going to be able to nest this year, but they're still around. They've stayed around. The other incomers, outgoers of geese varieties have kind of given up. They don't come much now. And they get chased by everybody when they do come. So they don't stay very long. So there's a pair that haven't quite found a nesting site. There's the swans in the middle, and they kind of boss the whole water, less so down this end. But it's kind of the balancing thing. But sometimes, as I was saying, the geese kind of get, the alpha male geese gets himself in a position where he gets chased by the swan, and then he kind of loops around, and then he's chasing the other geese. And then the swans take over, and it's like he's invited the swans to come chase these other geese away. It's really funny. A very deliberate activity going on. And the male will, the ghost will, recognize he's a threat, he's being threatened and he zips across the water, gets out of the lake and then he turns around and he kind of has a good face-off with the male swan who doesn't want to get out of the water but just want to kind of boss the water. It's really interesting, interesting dynamic.
[8:05] So that's the pair of geese in the background there having a little honk. They're going to get moved on again very shortly. They're trying to run attention to themselves, who knows why. And then you've got these swallows. I can see their swallows. Oh, there's one. I thought it was going to zip straight at me. So there's lots of bird activity everywhere. And they're getting in among the alpacas, and the alpaca's getting in among them. Everybody seems to be getting on reasonably well, which is nice.
[8:33] And, yeah, I haven't heard a cuckoo yet, but it'll not be long. And everybody else is busy doing their thing. So spring is here. It's still arriving, but it has arrived. You know what I mean. Both are true. There's more to come, but there's a lot here already, and the leaves are opening up. There's a lot of shades of green. I love this kind of patchwork of shades of green. And it's quite an interesting mix of the different leaves, the different trees. Has it all gone now? You're standing, staring, and listening to me talking. Enjoy your breakfast, girls? Yes, I think you did. You look like you're happy. It's a bit damp, a bit miserable. Are they going to go out or are they not? There's not much hay. I can put a bit more hay out for you. I could do that. Would you like some hay? Not sure. See, when I do that, they go away. You can have the hay later. Perhaps I'll put it out and you can come back to it later. So no doubt they'll have a wander out and have a graze.
[9:38] Today, we're in April, so we're having April showers. and not the really heavy ones but it's definitely coming and going and there's the lovely, picking circles landing on the water lots of steady light rain, I'm going to go indoors in the dry I feel guilty again it's not because it's cold but it's just because it's dry, but the alpacas know what to do to find what they're looking for, and they don't dislike being out in the rain and I'm going to give them some hay and we'll give you an update on what else has been going on but I'm going to do that from indoors so a different sound.
