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Here’s Mr & Mrs MacGregor, our only remaining geese.

The Big Garden Croft : Mr & Mrs MacGregor

He’s called Mr MacGregor because he’s like that Mr MacGregor in Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit.  He’s fierce, and chases after you if you stray into his sphere of concern (which, apparently, is a sphere with quite a large radius).

Mr MacGregor is so fierce that he chased away the previous Gander-in-Chief, Mr Jackson, and his wife – his own parents.  Mr Jackson had been in charge since he was about two years old, and that was back in 2010.  They first went missing last autumn, but they would occasionally reappear, imploring me for some food, before being cruelly treated by MacGregor. We havent’ seen either of them for two or three months – far longer than any previous absence.  We think they may be out in the wilds of the east side of Eriskay.

Embden geese, The Big Garden croft, Isle of Eriskay, 2016. Mr & Mrs Jackson, left.

Mr MacGregor also chased away his own four siblings. More precisely, he saw off his brother, and his sisters went too. We think they may have emigrated to as far away as South Uist!

Mrs MacGregor is quite different. She was hatched in an incubator from eggs bought on eBay.  We’ve found that human-raised goslings don’t seem to have the same robustness or hardiness as naturally raised geese.  She has a lovely nature, though, and still eats from my  hand, and lets me pick her up and give her a cuddle – she wraps her neck around mine.  Mr MacGregor doesn’t like it, but he’s reasonable enough to understand that when it comes to the crunch, the Gander-in-Chief is none other than Mr Bridge!

The Big Garden Croft : Goose on eggs in and old barrel, 2012