The Teenage Years

 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 local canal.  This is the point our teenagers will start to come into their proper feathers and the grand reveal will happen.  Unfortunately, they will have fledged at this point so we never really know what we raised.  Sometimes a duck will land on the pond and make it's way to the front door, the fact it knows where the food comes from is probably the only way we ever know what was one of ours.

Typical teenager really.  Turns up when hungry!