Duck and drake behaviour has been appropriately Spring-like for some weeks now, some of it makes me smile and some I find a little frustrating, like for instance the behaviour at bedtime. I usually go out to shut them in at quarter to 9 - since the clocks have gone forward, and the little toe-rags are still on their little pond. I stand there, arms crossed [I mustn't get too close or they flee in the opposite direction] until they deign to come out, and then they start pottering around, picking up a few grains from the food box, taking a drink of water ... as if it were still daytime. I eventually lose patience, go around the other side of the hut and THEN they go in, gone are the nights when they went in unbidden, all by themselves, *sigh*.
Something that made me laugh out loud was seeing the two drakes doing a lot of urgent running about, coming from the greenhouse direction, past the garage, into the duck run, racing out again, past the garage, and repeating this performance time and again. Just the two of them, Ben and Jay, leaving the girls foraging in the field. Well, I had to investigate, didn't I. When I got into the duck run I could see what the trouble was, the wild mallard drake was sitting on the garage roof and my two little fellows were desperately trying to get at him!
A couple of the girls have got broody, not Caramel this time who nested in the old greenhouse [which I have demolished], but Gertie and Dash. I noticed a couple of times that Gertie was still in the hut when I was collecting the eggs. Since then I have left collecting till after 1pm, by that time the rest of the little flock have "dragged" her out of the hut after two or three unsuccessful tries. Once I saw her following the group about mid-morning, but half an hour later she came trundling back on her own to complete her 'sitting', it must give her some kind of comfort.
The urge to breed must be very strong. Yesterday, when I was dragging some of the huge branches of the apple tree I had chopped down [it has canker] down to the ditch I could see only 5 of the group on the duck pond. They all jumped out when they saw me, and then a little face popped out of one of the blue tubs which had tilted over in the near empty pond. It was Dash, she came scuttling out when the others left the pond, and then I could see three eggs inside the tub. There were still three there when I disturbed her with the camera this morning ...
I won't interfere with them, other than taking photos, neither of the ducks stay on the eggs all the time, in the afternoons the 7 are together again. In the picture below Gertie is lying on the left and Dash is perking up on the right in front of Captain's old hut:
To finish a few photos, of the severely pruned apple tree and of what's sprouting and blossoming in the garden - a bit worrying that, as cold weather and possibly snow is forecast for tomorrow!
Susie, I promise I'll get around to taking a photo of progress on the pineberry which I planted in the bed in the conservatory a couple of days ago. The one your friend looked after looks terrifically well!
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