Returned from Carl's BBQ last night [THANK YOU and Val and the girls, and it was great to have a chat with John Shelton, too, after all that time], a touch after 9. A bundle of ducks were gathered outside the shed and went in as soon as I stepped out of the car. 4 girl ducks went off to the hut inside the enclosure where I assumed Dotty was already in, as she had been the last few nights. Imagine then my surprise when she came limping out of the shed this morning alongside 10 others! She dived into the food bowls with everyone else and also limped after them wherever they went, sitting down when she wanted to rest. I tried at first to drive her back into the enclosure but then thought 'leave her', she knows best where she wants to be and how much she can use her leg.
I got her on camera a little later resting up with some mates:
Not a very clear close-up, but Dotty's eyes are getting better since she's been dipping her head into the water bowls. In the photo on the right you can also see that she still holds her injured foot to the left. She has a severe limp, but is obviously determined to keep in with the crowd!
The other surprise I had concerns Anke. All of a sudden, for four days from 5th - 8th August, there was no egg in the hut from her. I thought at first that she stopped laying earlier this year, normally she'd carry on into September. Then John said he'd seen her several times in the middle of the reeds on the pond island, and when I checked I could make out 2 or 3 eggs lying at the bottom of a hollow. John went with the camera the next day but could see just one egg:
Today I went to check up on the clump of reeds but could see no trace of eggs in there, just a broken and eaten one on the side:
Because Anke had started laying into the hut regularly again since the 9th my guess is that birds predated the eggs she had laid on the island and she gave up being broody as a bad job ...
... she's shown no sign of stress anyway, swimming happily with Candi and Captain:
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