Pied Piper of Penleys Grove Street On bank holiday Monday - such a beautiful day - I decided to go out and paint the front gate.

Attracted by a loud quacking, I noticed a goose walking down the middle of the road, closely followed by her brood of five baby goslings, all chirping as they ran behind their mother.

Locking the front door of the house I walked the full length of Penleys Grove Street Pied Piper-like with the mother and family following close behind.

Shielding the family from traffic in Monkgate (by walking down the cycle path) they walked down the footpath into Huntington Road.

At the crossing point the traffic stopped like the parting of the Red Sea. I felt like Moses leading the chosen to the promised land.

All in all it was a pleasure and a privilege to see the family group safely down to the River Foss.

And yet with the Groves temporarily being opened to through traffic from Tuesday (during the temporary closure of Lord Mayor’s Walk for gas mains work) their life expectancy would have been nil if they had tried the same walk then.

DM Deamer, Penleys Grove Street, Monkgate, York

 

Nature red in tooth and claw

It’s such a shame that the visitors to my open garden and pond (in aid of the Ukrainian fund) cannot see the five cygnets that hatched recently.

At six days old they were killed at night by a fox or foxes. The pen (female swan) was injured in the attack but seems OK now.

The same pair on the pond have had varying success over the years, but a previous pair lost all their eggs and the female was so injured she died a slow death.

Joining the otter verses fish problem, we have a nature red in tooth and claw problem to try and deal with. All ornithologists, however, inform us that the experienced swan will try again.

David Findlay, Haxby