Happy New Year!



Well, it's New Years Day and so starts my resolution to document a year of life on our pond.

We have 2 resident mallard ducks who we christened Egwina and Duncan some time ago. Poor Egwina was a tad confused with the warm Autumn and decided to surprise us with a clutch of eggs which hatched on Sunday 18th October.
Seven survived and we now have just two left to fledge.

Today Dot and Webster are sheltering under the willow tree as the pond is still frozen across most of it's surface. I've trekked down there several times with food and they seem as happy as ducks in minus temperature waters can be.
Their parents are nowhere to be seen at the moment, we aren't entirely sure where they disappear too but Steve has a theory they have day jobs at the local park as the usually appear back in our pond around 5pm.

I have decided to investigate what exactly ducks do all night on an icy pond and plan on setting up a wildlife camera later today. We've had fabulous luck capturing naughty fox cubs with this in the past and I really don't use it as often as I should.

Pretty quiet on the rest of the wildlife front today, though I have sat and watched the blue tits dip in and out of the bird boxes in the back garden, not to nest but to look for the cinnabar moths and insects that are in them.

Fingers crossed tomorrow is a little warmer!

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 1, 2021 at 1:36 PM

    Marvellous. Thank you! I look forward to reading more.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownJanuary 1, 2021 at 1:37 PM

      (RedRosie btw - can't seem to enter a name)

      Delete
  2. The sandwichJanuary 1, 2021 at 1:52 PM

    Thank you so much for this! Will follow with interest

    ReplyDelete

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