Saturday again, 19th November 2011

Our 10 2011 "ducklings" are 5 months old now, and in honour of the occasion I took a couple of videos and photos with the new birthday camera [thank you again Carl and Annie!] this morning, I was down at the big pond anyway, cleaning out the hut.

The videos I shall upload to YouTube and put the links in here, 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIcajRuDw2E&feature=feedu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-po61nnhuQI
but some photos can go in now:

This was the first time I'd seen our 10 young ones rooting around behind the big pond, and there was a constant diving into the pond and then hopping out again with great ease, they're very fit!

 

Sunday, 20.11

These two photos above, for which I turned the camera to portrait, absolutely refuse to show in here the right way up.  I have turned them and saved them portrait many times, they show up exactly as I want in my picture folders, but as soon as I put them in here they lie back on their sides.  When I started this blog entry yesterday afternoon I must have tried posting these photos the right way up at least six times - and then gave up in disgust.  If anyone reading this can give me some pointers I'd receive them gladly!

While some were foraging behind the pond, others had an extensive preening session, Bless, Joseph and Billie-Jean in these two photos:

In the afternoon I needed to go into the greenhouse where John has stored the chrysanthemums, and noticed as I left the house that the ducks and drakes had turned up in the frog pond.  So, to make sure that Hedda was alright I went to check up on her at the big pond, but she was nowhere to be seen.  You've guessed it, she had hobbled along with the other 14 which I was very pleased about - she would have stayed behind and shouted for the others if she hadn't felt up to it.  I took a couple of snaps, but it was getting a bit dark by then:

You can see in this picture Hedda [under the 2-stemmed birch] ready to head back 'home'

to the big pond, but when the others went back to the frog pond she turned and

joined them.  She's front left in the photo below.

I don't think I've mentioned that we stopped the daily catching of Hedda out of her hut 3 days ago.  After 16 days of Metacam and 20 of Arcoxia medication we thought we'd pause and see how it goes with her.  Should she show signs of not being well we can always start the Arcoxia again.  She still gets daily doses of Glucosomanine sulphate in her special bowl.