It's interesting how fast prey species babies get up versus those from the predator species where their babies often take a week or more even to get their eyes open.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Imbolc
The first lambs here often come near Imbolc. This year, they beat it by over a week. In the first photo, the second of the twins has not yet gotten up, but you can see it is bright eyed and within a few more moments, it was checking out the source of sustenance.
It's interesting how fast prey species babies get up versus those from the predator species where their babies often take a week or more even to get their eyes open.
It's interesting how fast prey species babies get up versus those from the predator species where their babies often take a week or more even to get their eyes open.
Cute little black lambs. May they thrive.
ReplyDeleteBirth of any animal leaves me breathless. Such a marvelous miracle. Does the mother lamb let you touch the babes? What percentage of females give birth to twins? As much as I love Irish culture I had to look up your post title. How nice.
ReplyDeleteShe lets us handle them but as soon as she can, this ewe keeps them away from everything possible. She is the first one out in the field and the hardest one to get back in. She has her lambs usually first or second. The one that has usually had them first this year died in birthing. She was quite old. And in our flock 2/3 have twins. Some breeds are prone to twins. We also get triplets but actually prefer not getting them as it's easier to lose one and harder on the mothers.
ReplyDeleteWhat darling little babies......So very sweet. I always love seeing your animals especially at Birthing time. I don't know that word, at all.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it mean?
Imbolc means Ewe's Milk and is Celtic. By the Celtic calendar, it's the first day of spring.
ReplyDeleteThe first day of spring? I think that is quite a ways off for us. In any case, the babies are absolutely adorable and so happy they are protected there. Otherwise they would definitely be the prey.
ReplyDeleteIt always feels like the first day of spring where I live and remember Celtic peoples were similar to the PNW at least the west of the Cascades part. It is when the ewes lamb (ours almost always have) and the trees are beginning to bud out. Now we can often get a hard freeze in February that ruins fruit crops, etc., even have had them in March, but it is feeling like spring here. The frogs are croaking every night and the grass is growing.
ReplyDeleteLove seeing your lamb photos.
ReplyDeleteI never knew about the difference in newborn prey vs predator early efforts toward mobility. Makes sense as a matter of necessity. Nature is fascinating if we just pay attention.
ReplyDeleteI've not paid that much attention to all the mystics, festivals etc., but your writing makes it interesting. A young family member deliberately chose Spring Solstice as their wedding day years ago -- a longest day, I suppose, or maybe there was some other connotation as I never thought to ask them.
My mother growing up toward the end of the agrarian period on a prosperous farm sometimes referred to intuitive and learned interpretations of nature based on handed down knowledge, experience, astrological features, and likely some mysticism. I wish I could recall many of the nature observations she casually made about conditions through subsequent years long after we became either periodic city dwellers, or small limited farm types (to be generous.)