Wild duck treat

[alan refail]

Our visiting wild duck (I mentioned here viewtopic.php?p=90387#p90387) surprised us this morning by bringing ten newly hatched ducklings up from the river. We had guessed there was something afoot as recently she has never been up with both of her drakes (yes!) at the same time, so someone was left sitting the eggs. Must try for some photos tomorrow now the camera's charged up.

[Primrose]

How lovely! I wonder why it is that the females always need two chaperones?

Our 3 wild duck visitors (also one female and two drakes) are still visiting us several times daily. The female always seems to make a bee-line for our rhubarb patch but haven't seen any sign of any nest so like last year, it's probably elsewhere and our garden is just for feeding, rest and recreation. But they did create mayhem in our tiny pond when I forgot to cover it overnight. Looked out of the window at 5 a.m. yesterday and they were all in there frightening the tadpoles to death!

[alan refail]

Such a short-lived pleasure

She was up yesterday with both her drakes and no sign of duckilings. Either killed or abandoned.

[oldherbaceous]

Morning Alan, we have three Mother ducks this year, they only have four ducklings between them now, very upsetting indeed.

It seems to be mainly crows that are taking them, with the help of one particular cat.

[Primrose]

Alan, that's so sad, but I guess reflects the number of predators that are around. I suppose that's one of the reason that they normally lay so many eggs because few of the babies survive to adulthood but to lose all 10 of them so quickly is rather tragic.