looking back .......

...... at the earliest photos and at those I took on Saturday afternoon when the sun came out briefly, you can see the markings they developed from the first days - on some of them, anyway.


We'd never have thought, for instance, that our green beaked one would develop feathers like in the photo on the left from 6th August [the little insert is from 15th July].
  
Having struggled with names for our teenage gang for a little while I thought it a good idea to give them all names, even if they have to be changed later when their gender is clear.  So, our Green Goddess on the left here I'm abbreviating to 'Dess'.




There's not been such a huge change in this duck, No.11 [from Mel], who got bashed by a heavy clamp falling out of my hand the very day after little stripey feet died, and who limped for weeks after.  I've been so grateful that she survived, recovered, lost her limp entirely and grew into a beauty that I consider it a blessing to me, and I've named her 'Bless'.  The photo below is from 6th August again, the little insert from 14th July.  Underneath little 'Bless' can be seen Annie's "pretty boy" whom I've named 'George' [get it?]

Baby 'George' can be seen again in the centre here, with baby 'Bless' and 'Dess' above him left and right.

We'll keep 'HeddaJedda', I think, or just 'HJ', as a name for our white Campbell Mix [all our drakes were fawn&white] thanks to Annie's iphone!  The other two in the photo above [still showing John on his knees grouting the slabs - which he finished this morning] are the one that used to be Sarah's favourite on the left and one of the first two little drakes to hatch; they were the first three I took out of the incubator: 

I found it very hard to distinguish between these two then, and still do now: today's photo [with arrows]

Sarah's favourite I used to think was black with eye stripes.  We know she's a girl [quacking!], and walking friend Edna christened her 'Blue' because of her blue wing feathers, but she's turning more  brown and mottled with every day.  We can't call her Chocolate as the colouring and eye stripe are wrong, but what about 'Praline'?
I welcome suggestions!  Our black beauty [thank you, Pine] on the right of the photo above now has blue wing tips too.  I had called him/her 'Sooty' or 'Sweep', but that may not be fitting in the end.

Another picture from Saturday with inserts.  Starting bottom right and clockwise: 'Dess', 'Bless', 'Gertie2', 'Toots', and 'Boy'. 

'Gertie2' because she reminds me of the colouring of my first duck Gertie ...... but "her" head looked very dark today, I thought; we might have 3 fawn&white drakes, no girl.  'George' no longer qualifies as a f&w, not sure about his mixed colours.  Here are photos from today:

 

 From left to right: 'Boss', 'Bless', 'Gertie2', and at the rear: 'Boy', 'HJ', 'Toots', 'George', 'Sooty'.



The head markings of the f&w drake front left remind me very much of our BBD[Big Boy Donald], that's why I've called him Boy.

'Blue'/'Praline', 'George', 'Gertie2' - or another boy f&w.

It's been rather fun looking through photos of the little ones, especially the ones taken with Charlie's camera were gorgeous and only marred by that dratted mashed potato glueing up their little heads:

Toots and HJ

 Blue and Boss.

The first five out of the incubator on 19.6.11

This blog entry is getting a bit long, so I'd better close with a few more photos from Saturday when I opened the little enclosure around their shed for the first time and lured them out with cucumber pieces.  Surprising to see who was brave to come out first and who didn't at all ['Gertie2'].

I thought the feathers on our black beauty 'Sooty' looked lovely and shiny in this photo.