A Year On The Pond

  Our cute little ducklings are now gangly, half plucked, rampaging teenagers!  They do nothing but eat, sleep and go on occasional riots across the water.  They are so big now, not far from Egwina size and it's sometimes difficult at a glance to spot her amongst them. Funny things juvenile ducks, their initial feathers will all look exactly like mum, so it's incredibly tricky to tell who's male and who is female at this stage.  There is a school of thought that you can hazard a reasonably accurate guess from the line that crosses the eye.  The thicker the line then it's male.  It's a great theory, but anyone who's tried to keep 13 ducklings in one place for long enough to study their eye pattern will know it's flawed.    Over the summer months the male will lose his beautiful colours and look exactly like a female.  For a while he will also look like someone needs to call the RSPB because he just looks like he's had a rough night up the loca...

I've always fancied a pair of those concrete lions on the gateposts, this doesn't quite have the same effect I feel.... Here we are coming up for week 3 I think and the ducklings are growing like weeds.  We have 14 now having lost two.  We almost lost three after a rather traumatic run in with a cat who grabbed one as I went out to feed them.  I screamed, it ran and we assumed duckling had died.  Transpired the little guy had made his escape when I screamed and plopped back in the pond, meanwhile us and several other neighbours were scouring gardens looking for him. Anyway, it's fair to say this clutch are utterly bonkers.  Previous ducklings have stayed pretty close to Egwina's side for safety, and thats exactly what a little duck should do.  This lot love nothing more than to scatter to every side of the pond leaving mum in the middle quacking loudly trying to regroup them.  They are everywhere and seemingly have no fear at all. Our goose problem see...