not much going on ...

I started this entry yesterday morning, Thursday 18th, which then turned out to be such a busy day visiting and sorting photos - all to do with our Heritage Group - that I never got back to it.

Once more with feeling then:

There really isn't much going on as far as the troupe of ducks is concerned, they run everywhere together and all is well. I wanted to mention, though, that I'm very grateful to two ducks who continue to give us an egg a day, a white one from either Billie-Jean or Gertie in the top hut [which looked particularly dirty yesterday morning as we'd managed to shut 15 in there on Wednesday night - only 9 in the shed!]:

[Notice how the mole is working his way around the hut now, it has pockmarked the whole run!]

In the bottom hut it is Anke who gives us a pale blue/green egg a day, I know it is her because on one morning I was a little earlier than usual and she laid it outside near one of the water buckets, in front of my eyes. She hollows out a different "nest" for her egg every day, sometimes it's in the nest box, sometimes just behind, and on this occasion in the left far corner. A couple of times I found none in the hut, but then the next day there would be two. [PS: this morning her egg was in a hollow in the opposite corner of the hut on the right.]

It is unusual for them to be laying this time of year, end of August they finish mostly. The egg production of the girls in the shed slowed down towards the end of August, and the last egg from there I fetched out on 10th September. I don't know why these two ducks are carrying on [I stopped giving all of them layers' pellets several months ago], but, as I said, I'm grateful - it's nice to still be getting 2 fresh eggs a day.

I took some photos yesterday of all 27 in and around the duck pond, of a very peculiar looking hen pheasant I see every day which has tufts of feathers sticking out behind her head, and two or three of the garden.