A grave mistake!

The day started with heavy rain, then changed to showers and a bit of sunshine.  Late afternoon was a lot better, though.


Shortly before 5 I went into the house to make tea, but opened the duck run beforehand so that they could come outside if they wanted to.  Yes, indeed, that's just what happened; I saw them foraging in the garden only a few minutes later:

So I left my tea cup standing and went out with the camera.  They weren't very far from the frog pond and I thought I'd show them how to get to it ...... that was my bit mistake .....

OOOOOHHHHHH!

They didn't go in right away, stood around undecided or stuck their beaks into grass and weeds.

 I could see that this might take some time, so went off to fetch my cup of tea before it got cold, and of course took some pictures from the house [as seen in the photo on the right].

 Bertie [Annie convinced me that he could not possibly be a Gertie] had something in his beak which he just had to wash  -  that was the signal for the others and they went in:

 

 

 

 

And so they carried on, from one corner of the pond to the others.  My tea was finished and I went to do other things  - like cleaning out duck huts and putting in fresh bedding.


When it came to quarter past 7 I really thought they'd spent enough time in the frog pond and tried to entice them out with pieces of cucumber.  They looked at me incredulously, "what, we're supposed to come out of here where we're having so much fun?  You cannot be serious!"


I was beaten for the time being and went to make supper.  While I was eating it I sat on the spiral staircase where I had a good view of proceedings in the frog pond.  Come 20 to 8 and they must have had enough.  There was a gathering and I could see a big discussion going on.  The decision was made, we're going 'home'!  Ducks never seem to go around things if they can go straight through or over them, shortest route  -  which meant that they tried to get out at the steps end, opposite to where they'd got in, clambering up the steep side and dropping back into the pond.


I took pity on them then, went to the flat end and offered them a couple of cucumber bits.  It worked this time.  HJ was first out and snaffled the cucumber, all others followed keenly.  There were no problems on the way back to their enclosure, they dived ravenously into their growers' pellets for their supper and went into their shed by themselves like every night.  They didn't even offer to come out again when I went to shut the door at 8!