Killing with Kindness ....

South Pond, Midhurst sees a bunch of goslings each year. This is a reassuring sight. If you look closely, you’ll be able to see that the wings of the mother (at the head of the group - see in Large) are deformed. This is due to a diet that contains a lot of bread, especially white bread. It leads to organ damage and bone deformity, and the inability to fly. I’ve seen at least four of the resident geese on South Pond suffering from this ‘spitfire wing’ condition, but it’s good to see that it hasn’t stopped this female attracting a mate and breeding, although she will never be able to fly away.

I know it’s fun to take kids and grand kids down to the pond with a bag of dry bread, but it is really not good for water fowl. This pond is overcrowded with fish, including carp. The uneaten bread drops to the bottom of the pond and is picked up by the fish which proliferate. Overcrowding means they compete for food and eat anything and everything - the larvae of dragon- and damsel-flies, as well as small pond life and invertebrates. Bread left on the banks attracts a bigger population of rats, which eat duck eggs and unwary ducklings.

There are many other complications of feeding bread and over feeding the water fowl population, but the sight of these poor deformed geese should be enough to make people heed the ‘Do Not Feed’ signs. You would think....

When I arrived this morning, the father of this little family was seeing off a newly arrived pair of mating geese..