We should have been opening the garden to the public for the National Gardens Scheme today. Current pandemic restrictions make that impossible. Instead we were greeted with a delightful surprise.
Every year in May, without fail for at least the last ten years, we are visited by a pair of wild Mallard Ducks. They arrive, live in the garden for a month, then disappear. Just the one pair, visiting Sennicotts – where there is no running water. We have no idea where they come from, why they decided Sennicotts, nor where they go.
We have been trying to practice wildlife-friendly-gardening partly because it seems the right thing to do but far more because there is something absurdly rewarding when the wild chooses the patch you have looked after to hang out.
The Mallards came this year as usual and once again appeared to have left towards the end of May. Or so we thought … until an early morning visit to the walled garden today…