Great Seabrook

Cowroast, Grand Union Canal – Tuesday 30 April 2013

A late start as I had some personal admin to complete (visit to the bank) then got going at 11:00.  There has been more activity today with pairs of boats heading towards the IWA Cavalcade this weekend.  I’m going against the flow so locks have been in my favour, completing 10 locks in 3 miles.  Since leaving Packet Boat Marina I have been climbing but this is the top of the Chilterns so from tomorrow I will be going down for a while.

At Dudswell lock there was a pair of ducks with about 10 ducklings and took them into the lock which was full with water flowing over the lower gates.  Mum and Dad then swam over the top riding the waterfall.  The ducklings obviously didn’t like this, but the parents must have been calling because the ducklings started to go over.  A couple of ‘chicken’ ones climbed out of the lock and went down the footpath!  Further on at Cowroast a lady duck was obviously fed up with the attention she was getting – just before the lock gate closed she nipped in leaving about a dozen males outside making a lot of fuss and then she just bobbed around quietly.

Great Seabrook, Grand Union Canal – Wednesday 1 May 2013

Off at 07:45 through the Tring Cutting then down through the Marsworth locks, a flight of 7 then a gap and 2 close together, a distance of 6 miles.  I moored just past the swing bridge and as it was nice and sunny spent some time just sitting and also helped a couple of boats through the bridge (the mechanism is usually on the non-towpath side of the canal).

Today’s ‘duck tail’ concerns their courting methods.  Three drakes were pestering a duck and while trying to ‘have their way’ kept pushing her underwater, obviously nature knows best but these three weren’t playing by her rules as later the body of the duck went floating past.