Duck psychology

Mama duck took off and left a couple of weeks ago. She’d been going away on trips, getting the ducklings used to being alone and more independent. (They weren’t, of course. Still kept begging for bread and annoying the rabbit.) Still, they look like ducks now. Big. Fat. And, mostly, winged.  They are trying frantically to fly, propelling themselves out of the pond before collapsing beak first onto the grass.  Much flapping of wings but no lift-off – as yet.

Today, Mama returned – with 7 tiny ducklings. They look as if they’ve just crept out of their eggshells, tiny balls of fur stumbling around.

The original 4 are REALLY annoyed. The look of disdain on their faces said it all, so we thought, until Boss Duck (aka Apple) had a go at the ducklings. Mama didn’t react much, apart from poking her beak at Boss. No dramatics, fights or other tantrums.

I wish I understood duck psychology.

Now they’re all hunkered down within a few feet of each other:


4 adolescents, 1 adult, 7 miniature ducklings and 1 rabbit.  Sounds almost like the chorus of Tom Lehrer’s hunting song.

Ducks growing up

 The ducks are an endless source of amusement. They now mob us whenever we set foot outside the house. When inside, they lurk under windows, or tap on the glass of the conservatory door with their beaks.

These permanent residents needed names. Apple, orange, peach and plum. Yum.

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.

Of ducks, rabbits and other dog substitutes...

Mama and baby - one of eleven, originally...

...growing bigger...

and then there were four...

....beginning to fledge...

...with friend...

...bunny kiss...

Endless Eastertime entertainment...

Mpira

It is just over a year since Mpira died. I still experience the shock - it was so sudden. I suppose it was this week - I don't remember the exact date, save that it was a Monday, although even that has no particular significance. Why remember the date of loss? Better to remember those many days of gain...of love, of affection, of enjoyment, of laughter.

Anyway, we are experiencing spring in a different way without him. Nearly three weeks ago, a mother duck arrived in the garden, eleven tiny ducklings in tow. The numbers quickly diminished - she would take them on a walk, coming back with one or two less each time (cats? crows? just lost? who knows?) - until a week later there were only four.

But those four have stayed. And grown. They are beginning to look like miniature ducks now.

And because Mpira is not here to harass them, I spend my days gazing out of the window, fascinated as they rush across the lawn, between bird feeder and pond. Tiny rabbits eat daisies, barely hopping aside as I go backwards and forwards to the washing line. Tits, greenfinches, robins, chaffinches and goldfinches cluster around the bird feeder, jostling, maneouvring, LIVING...

And flowers have exploded.

Random doings

Nearly half way through June.  Hmmm.  What have I done?

I've spent a LOT of time watching ducks.  A pair at the back door this morning, asking for food.  They didn't like leftover pastry but gobbled up leftover barbecue rolls.  (Just a little - it's not good to give bread to ducks at all, really, but that was all I had.)

Last week, TWO mama ducks.  With ducklings.  5 and 8 each.  13 all together.

Then there were the rabbits...  they make free of the garden now that Mpira is no longer around to chase them. These two inhabit the back: the tiny one on the front lawn is now almost their size.  A few days ago, one was almost at the back doorstep, along with four visiting mallards.

And this afternoon we saw goldfinches...and a moth crawling along the patio, scurrying like an ant...

I've been watching nature a LOT.

Then there have been more evening beach visits:

Port Grat, our 'local' beach - just a few minutes walk from our house. So beautiful.

And Cat came home from uni...even more so.

Bliss.

(And I haven't even mentioned school...so I won't.)

Overrun

Overrun with livestock.  Well, not really.  It just seems like it.

First, a few days after Mpira died, a duck appeared - with 15 ducklings. Which rapidly began to decrease: first one drowned in the pond, which I wasn't too sad about; after all, if a duck can't swim, it doesn't deserve to survive. You have to think of the survival of the race of Ducks - no good encouraging the continuation of genes which encourage drowning, if you're a duck. 

Then there were 14. Mama Duck took them on a walk one morning and lost one on the way, returning with 13.

Then there were none. No duck, no ducklings. A drake arrived in the garden and started harrassing her: despite our best efforts to chase him off, we couldn't be there 24/7. So she took off. Not literally - the ducklings couldn't fly, having only vestigial wings which they couldn't even flap.

Now we have the odd drake - very odd.  And the odd pair - also odd. No eggs, no ducklings, no apparent purpose in life. They don't even take a purposeful interest in the pond - it's more the 'oh, I say, a pond, we might as well make a perfunctory splash just for ducks' sake' approach.

Rabbits, now.  Mpira just LOVED chasing rabbits. Nothing pleased him more than to take off at top speed after these interlopers. 

News must have sped round the warren, because they were there the very next morning. Two large, fat, lolloping rabbits, lumbering round the lawn in the early morning. They've moved on now: to the next door field, where they gaze at us over the wall, unfazed now there is no terrier to see them off. Instead, there is a tiny baby bunny which sits, completely unafraid, munching away, taking no notice of us as we walk to the cars and back again.

Oher rodents too.  The rats which Mpira loved to harrass, screaming up to them and then pulling up short with a bounce which set him rocking on all four paws, like a car which has jammed the brakes on, rocking on its springs.  They are out on the lawn under the bird feeder in bright daylight - no worries, no cares...

And the MICE.  I didn't mind the odd glimpse of a furry body dashing for the outdoors - they didn't seem to be eating anything.  We did, however, block up the tiny hole which we thought might be an entrance. They retaliated by gnawing away, seemingly outside our bedroom door, ALL NIGHT.  Clever, too - they stopped as soon as we sat up in bed, so it was hard to determine exactly where they were.

Livestock. Wild life.  Overrun.