Ducks, and how they live.

With friend...previously, Mama Duck would chase him away. One time he fell in the pond...

Beginning to fledge...

The ducks are becoming more amusing by the day. They demand food, rushing up whenever we appear - whether outside or even near a window. They dog - or is that 'duck' - my very footsteps, following so closely at my heels that I dare not make any impulsive movement lest I tread on them. Like the baby birds they are, they start screaming for feed, imperatively demanding: cheeping and chirruping, apart from one, the largest, whose plumage is beginning to darken and change colour - along with his voice. It must be somewhat disconcerting to discover that your cheep now resembles a quack.

So the four musketeers spend their days huddled in a group, or rushing across the lawn, or in frantic activity in the pond: ducking and diving, or skeetering across the surface as they chase insects.

They spend their days making me smile.