Sunday 27th morning - nearly Emm's birthday

We're still waiting for the bottom 4 girls to make a start with the egg laying, but our new ones have stepped up production.  When the snow and frost had gone we found first 1 egg, on Valentines' Day!, then 2, 3 and eventually all four new ducks presented us with eggs, and 2 of them are not "Learner" eggs any more, they're big, so we have a fridge full of eggs now [40 since 14.2.] and I'd better start baking or giving them away to eager friends!  A couple of days ago I found 6 eggs in the box  -  no, not the boys... the day before John had found just 2 in the morning, so the 2 ducks who hadn't laid then must have gone back to lay later.  I'm glad they feel at home in their shed, makes me reluctant to split the group up.  I shall leave them together unless and until I see one of the ducks not coping with the boys' rough attentions.

When we returned from a trip out yesterday afternoon we found our 10 young ones on the front "lawn"[it's more moss than grass].  During the last few days I'd been driving them that way and behind the house several times to search for juicy morsels, but every time they came running back immediately -    so now they found their own way there.  As long as they don't cross the road like our Welsh girls did last year they should be ok!

I took photos through the windows at first, and as soon as I opened the one upstairs they obviously thought they shouldn't be where they were and moved to run the drive back down again  -  I was so keen to catch them running that I pressed the shutter too soon and only got a fuzzy picture, see below.

I got them in focus again by the time they reached their food box:

I've been thinking about moving the little fence separating the two groups, so as to give the ten access to the orchard - but now they've discovered the front garden and the area behind the house it doesn't seem urgent.  And it's nice to see Captain and at least 3 of his girls come up to the fence from the other side:

Most of the time it's peaceful within the groups, although Captain seems very occupied chasing and trying to hold down a mallard female - I first noticed the mallards had returned last Thursday, 23rd February.

 Hedda is still coping well with her handicap, in this long distance shot she is at the back of the pond rooting around and Candida is in the water.

 I must go and take some photos of the swathes of blooming snowdrops we have, this is just a little patch outside the sun room....

.....and the fishes were very lively after we tried and get some of the water lily roots out of their pond and stirred it all up: