Ducklings

Just a quick few lines to bring you up to date with the duckling news. Images will follow.

Goldeneye lost seven of her ducklings by Tuesday but has started to behave more responsibly. She leaves them in the 'nursery' nest box while she goes off with Gobi to feed. It's great to see them wandering up and down the plank on their own.

Mrs. Speckles was doing fine with her remaining egg until yesterday. We're not sure what happened but we found the egg, semi cracked, on the table of our day boat. How it got there we can only guess at but the real puzzle was that her nest box was completely empty, no straw left!

Yesterday evening we had a call from our friend and neighbour, Corinne, saying that there were three ducklings under the boat next to us. The duck we call 'Lonely', is sitting on eggs on the houseboat between Corinne's boat and ours, and Corinne could see ducklings in the pot and thought, perhaps, that the three in the water had left the nest early. We were worried because they tried to join up with Goldeneye's ducklings but she didn't want them and kept pecking at them to chase them off.

With the help of neighbours Josie and Barney, who managed to net the three, we took the ducklings back to Lonely. When I saw the size of her ducklings I realised that the ones netted were more than a day old whereas Lonely's ducklings were still in the process of hatching!

With no obvious mother duck in sight, we called on neighbours Peter and Sue, who are experienced at raising orphan ducklings, and they very kindly took them in and prepared the incubator to keep them warm and safe for the night. Sue mentioned that she'd noticed three abandoned ducklings further upstream while she'd been out in her boat and reckoned these must be the same three.

Meanwhile, Lonely is due to launch her brood anytime now! Pictures and more news to follow but, in the meantime, our thanks to Corinne and family, Josie and Barney, Peter and Sue.