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In happier news

The female mallard on our pond vanished 3 weeks ago but the males are hanging about, so I assumed she was on a nest nearby. No sign of any nest on the islands or in the reeds or sedges around the pond area. Regular male presence indicating they were there for some reason. 
Then l was weeding a lavender bed out today, and that is nowhere near the pond and I was just about to clip an overgrown lavender bush…and I saw an eye, stripy feathers and a beak. So well hidden. She is sitting on quite a few eggs. 

Yes well there a lots of bird boxes and nests in trees, shrubs, hedges etc round the garden but this is the first time the ducks have nested away from the water. I suspect it is because it hasn’t been warm so the greenery on the islands is lower than usual for April, and there is no dog. 

Have seen the usual pair of ducks around but they only drop into my pond from time to time.  However, I have discovered the regular perch of my resident owl thanks to the pile of pellets on the ground under it.

That is brilliant news. 

We put a new bird box up that I can see through the window from my usual favourite spot in the lounge.

Yesterday we saw bluetits had moved in to it, and I am very excited by this. We live in a town centre so it feels extra lucky.

Just this morning we have been trying to discourage woodpidgeons from nesting in the porch eaves, its a race before they establish the nest and we have to give up! 

So I've been doing a bit of research into all this. I was wondering whether to leave food near the nest. Answer is no as it attracts pests and alerts things to the whereabouts of the sitting duck.   

That phrase "sitting duck" is more significant than I thought. She sits there, rock still, for between 25 and 30 days and does not move from the eggs until they hatch or she concludes they are not going to (we have had a few abandoned nests over the years).  She does not get up to feed. She does not consume water except for any rain that falls on her feathers.  She goes into a warm stasis.   

She feeds up for a month to six weeks prior and powers on the fat.  I saw her diving and digging in the water in Jan and Feb. I thin saw her and the drake eating the crumbs from the fatballs under the cherry tree I use as a bird feeder station.  I've never seen ducks at bird feeders before and this involved dusk and dawn sorties from the pond, over the lawns to the tree, quite exposed.  This is a wild duck not domesticated so very wary and this was power eating. They also ate sunflower hearts but not peanuts.  Lots of fat, easily crushed in the gizzard I suppose.   I noticed the drake was with her, patroling but not eating.  He was eyes all about, neck movements up and down, nervously on guard duty. She was shovelling away, nib nib nib.  She must have put a lot of fat away and now she needs it.

On the day she lays the first egg, she makes a shallow nest scrape just enough to lay herself down in, pulls in leaves and then she plucks her down and makes a shallow saucer layer of thermal insulation under her and up the side so she lies there in a little sculpted carpet of her own feathers and dried leaves. She drops her neck back and turns her head over her wing "shoulder" and tucks her head down with her beak over her back and closes her eyes, so she's just a small rugby ball of brown and dark stripes in the shadow of a bush or shrub. Invisible unless she blinks and you see that little jewel twinkle.  Her body fat, built up between January and March sustains her and enough warmth to incubate the eggs until hatching. 

I think we must have about a fortnight to go.  The cat has not located her yet. The dog has now left us so that's helped her not get sniffed out.  She is cleverly in strong smelling lavender so not immediately identifiable to animals hunting by scent - fox, stoat etc. 

There is another pair on the water with two try-on drakes who are going through the courtship competition so maybe we will get a second brood on or around the pond.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My memory of our expectant mother ducks (moscovies, which sit for 35 days) was that they were the vision of patience and defensive withdrawal, but they would get off the nest every now and then for a bit of a feed and a bath. 

They would use the opportunity to do the most foul (fowl?) turds imaginable.  Genuinely putrid.  

One poor girl - Victoria - quite aptly took to her nest for months out of grief after her partner Albert was taken by a fox.  Albert was a girl too so there was nothing in the egg she sat on - which eventually exploded over her.  That drove her out to clean herself up.

We then let her hatch a chicken, which she was excited about for an hour or two until she realised it wasn't right.

So then we got her a young friend, Mrs Brown, who grew into a big dumb drake - but almost immediately gave Victoria back her mojo.  After about 4 months she left the nest within a day.

And continuing the very modern theme, mutters - you'd appreciate the story of the chick that Victoria hatched (and promptly turfed out).

It was mid winter so he had to be completely hand-reared, starting by being kept warm in an old ugg boot in an electric frying pan on lowest heat.  

He would follow us everywhere around the house even when tiny - would tear down the hallway chasing us of we ran away.  And was far too little and it was too cold for him to join his biological family in the chook yard.

And then this little chick (who we then assumed was a girl but whose deadname is now long forgotten) started to transition, and we knew he'd be turned into mincemeat by his dad Rodney the Rooster - also a victim of misgendering when we thought we'd bought a bunch of day-old hens.

So he was christened Cedric and lived a very privileged life.  Until he got too big, he was stuffed into a wine box to sleep at night, and then took to roosting directly outside the kitchen window so he could watch everything happening inside.

He followed us everywhere, and if we weren't there he'd follow the dog like a shadow.  Or even our pet lamb.  It would be quite the procession - dog, followed by Lena the lamb (actually a fully grown black merino who loved the dog and roamed around the house), followed by Cedric  tramping around the verandah.  Pad pad pad of the dog. Clop clop clop of Lena.  Clip clip clip from Ceddy in the timber deck.

Sometimes he'd try to take on the dog, who'd swat him away with lazy paw.  There'd be a few squawks and the dog would walk off with a cheeky smile and sometimes a mouthful of tail feathers, but aside from a slightly battered comb Ceddy would be completely unharmed.  He probably thought he and dog were even matched.

Ceddy never showed any interest in the hens.  Instead, he paid vigorous amorous attention to upturned plastic buckets and icre cream tubs.  Which goes to show that that if you hatch a strapping young man under a duck, raise him in an ugg boot and name him Cedric, he may turn out to be a bit weird.  It was both amusing and confronting.

He would jump into the car at every opportunity - if ever the car door was left open and unattended.  If we were just driving down to collect the mail or the paper, he could ride proudly on the passenger seat.  If we were driving into town we'd have to throw him out before leaving.

He would occasionally launch at visitors, which was highly unsociable.  One of the neighbours ended up with a bloody leg after she came over to feed the dog for us one time.  We had to present her with "Cedric", in roast form, as an apology.  But he was generally very well behaved and amiable.

He was the only one of the dozens of poultry over the years who was religiously taken to the vet whenever he had the slightest sniffle.  Ma and Pa Coffee would feel quite ridiculous driving to town in their old station wagon and walking into the surgery deeply upset that Cedric was under the weather.

He lived a long and happy life, and was buried in garden when his time was up.  Only to be recovered not once but three times by the dog - who probably wanted to make certain he was properly gone.  Which Ma Coffee found deeply distressing but finally had to recognise was sort of amusing in a very dark way.

Anyway, I hope your mother duck's offspring have a similarly illustrious career as Victoria's foster son!

Superb

Reminds my of my Godfather whose lovely house in Wiltshire was awash with hens and ducks who came in through the cat flap and stole dog biscuits. When you arrived in a car having driven over Salisbury plain and picked up moths and bugs on the bumper and number plate, you would be met on the gravel by a cloud of hens who would tap tap at the car and remove the bugs. And the paint. 

The band was always led by Edith, whose gravestone read ‘herein lies Edith Hen, straight squawking mother of two score and ten’

And her first born - Tilly, or more formally Atillah the Hen - took over her flock leadership duties on Edith’s demise. 

I love the story of Cedric. 

When I was a child, in a very suburban bit of Hampshire, we woke up one morning to find our cup de sac had been taken over by cockerels. We think that perhaps a box had fallen off a lorry on the bypass and they’d made their way too us. There was one in a tree, one pecking on the verge, two roosting on our garage door, etc etc. Over a period of a week or two, numbers dropped until eventually we were left with two: Fred, a magnificent chap with a fine tail but a pathetic attempt at a crow who lived in our garage, and Joe next door, who looked like living roadkill but had a tremendous voice. Eventually they moved in together in next door’s coal bunker, pecking away happily during the day outside and safely locked in at night. All was well until Fred vanished. Next door decided it was time to rehome Joe and he went to live with a friend of theirs who had a few elderly chickens, where he ruled the roost. We assumed they were on their way to become nuggets when they escaped: a real life Chicken Run with a happy ending.

Update: she is still sitting there. There is a second pair on the pond, and they were at the feeders this morning so she is fattening up. I think there will be two broods. 

I am not sure whether to keep clicking on this thread.  There is a high chance of it ending with a picture of a lacendar bush looking like a butcher's dustbin and a big steaming fox poo on mutters' doorstep

Nah, I think she has located there for very specific reasons. No fox is coming to our front door.  the lavender is a clever scent camouflage for her. She is almost invisible to passing predators. Am hopeful. 

heff it is a mix of Hidcote and munstead varieties. What you see there is a lot of plants dug out and some trimmed. I have learnt that these varieties of English lavender over the years get very leggy and then fall over and you have to cut them all the way back but not right away. When they are beginning to roll over, after about five years, you need to keep them growing but open up the centre and allow a new plant to grow up in the middle and then you cut off the heavy overgrown woody stuff. If you cut that back straight away with no new growth in the middle that the whole plant just dies. 

we had this twice and its ace.  When they are born they will stay in / near the nest for under a day and then the mum will want to lead them to water.  I had to help get ours and her 8 ducklings to water as she leapt over a short wall but the ducklings coulndt - but she didnt like me helping but eventually i got them round and then took this awesome video of her walking with her 8 ducks about 300m to a pond.  

When the Egyptian geese and mallards take their ducklings to the water in Hyde Park it's a bit of a slaughterfest.  Large gulls and carrion crows await like those hungry crocodiles in the Mara River waiting for gazelles to make the crossing.  Fortunately (for the species, not the unfortunate individuals that get gobbled down alive/speared to death etc) both species' breeding strategy is to produce large numbers of young so that at least some will make it through the gauntlet.  

same with mallards. There used to be one that produced a dozen ducklings every year in Middle Temple garden and it would go up the steps by Blackstone Chambers with the little ones going up the sloping edge, and then plop into the Fountain outside Fountain Court. Then the vultures would circle. Every day a cormorant would take one or two. Every year it would dwindle to the last one then that was gone too and mother duck would return to the river. One year she managed to rear four and walked them over the embankment and a motorbike took them out.  Beyond tragic.  I am hoping for better. 

Cormorants are well adapted to their semi-aquatic life and - like every other bird or animal I guess - are only acting by instinct, but jeez, they always struck me as a pretty fiendish-looking creature.  A cormorant would have been a great template for a Nazgul-mount in the Lord of the Rings movie, I reckon.  Didn't realize they were found in the environs of the Temple - they normally prefer larger bodies of water.   

Herring and black-backed gulls are only marginally less menacing.  Stone cold robbers and killers in smart black and grey suits.  Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs with his tie done up properly.  

I have seen, years ago, a female sparrowhawk bringing sticks to a tree in Lincoln's Inn - I always wonder if she ended up nesting there.  

"...and then plop into the Fountain outside Fountain Court. Then the vultures would circle. Every day a cormorant would take one or two. Every year it would dwindle to the last one then that was gone too..."

Are you sure they weren't just very senior trusts KCs....

Behold I bring glad tidings of great news. 

Last night I did my daily evening check and she was still sitting but nothing. She went on the nest in late March so it was 37 days, and I was thinking it had taken a week or two to lay and then the cold and rain had defeated her and she was sitting on cold eggs. 

But this morning the nest was empty. There much action on the pond. Two drakes very noisy and then I saw the duck with 8 one day ducklings.  Nature’s miracle. She has endured a rough month. 

Hurrah. 

Will post a pic but the max size is limited on this platform so definition is poor. 

It is a victory for mother nature, and also a vindication of setting aside one parcel of land to leave unmanaged. The photo you see is a fenced area which is given over to wildlife. All I do is strip out some reed mace once a year and that is it. It is full of bird and bat boxes, tree roosts for wood ducks. Newts abound and it has found favour with wild mallards and a pair of fancy mandarins. The mid summer dragon flies and damsels are abundant too. 

We found that Monty Cat was totally uninterested in our wild ducklings. We've lost plenty to the fox and also - horribly and memorably - to a magpie who waited until the mother duck was distracted fighting off amorous drakes, before slowly scoffing one. Oh and look out for herons. I thought we just had a ruddy great seagull visiting (no contact lenses) until it gobbled down a couple of ducklings and flew off.

No. 
Hidcote. Old English variety. Gets woody. 
Autumn prune photo’d in early March. It is now growing out with soft green tips. Gets shaped then.   Ends up looking good by June. Will update. 

 

ah - interesting!

once spent a week in a holiday cottage by a river estuary in cornwall. day one mummy duck and six ducklings visited - each day gulls took another - until it was just mummy. irrationally it put a bit of a dampener on the holiday. 

No sign today. Nothing on pond and nothing in or near the nest. They have probably been led through the hedge and out back into the wild world.  There’s a much bigger pond across the field and now probably now setting up over there.

I once nearly crashed a motorbike thanks to ducklings.

Pootling up the college drive, no lid, one hand on the handlebars, one hand smoking a fag, mummy duck and ducklings decide to cross right in front of me, so I grab the brake, lock up the front, nearly drop the bike, burn my leg on the exhaust (but the cigarette remains in play). 

Ducks just walk in front of me unruffled and mummy duck just looks at me to say "chicken..."  

I am so happy to see the happy ducklings on the pond.  Well done to that mamma duck.

Beautiful house and garden mutters.

As I am typing this a fox is running across the lawn towards my window.  And there is (was - until foxy appeared) a robin on the tree stump.  And a goldfinch hopping around in the grass.  

 

 

It's a snadger!

 

We used to say SNADGER! to the dog even when asleep and she would get up off her steamy bed and stand to attention, then woof at the door then if you opened up the door she'd use her long labrador nose to wedge open the door and bolt out giving the Hunting of the Snark Bark which was very much a getorfmoilaaaand wuff.   She;d run out going gnash gnash with her teeth like she was swishing a curved sword. Snap snap. Wuff wuff.  

They were not welcome.

This puts me in mind of walking tound norbury park with very small #2 and an even smaller #3.  I was trying to impart some wisdom of country ways.

"What's the biggest predatory mammal in the UK" I asked

#2 stopped and looked at the skyline in deep contemplation.

"Hmm" he said, after some time, "I think it must be the mole"

All subsequent walks have begun with cautionary warnings about the giant norbury mole

My grandmother used to tell a story about squirrels.  We see grey squirrels everywhere now, but there was a time when they were not so abundant, and certainly not abundant in country woodland. But they were to be seen in parks.  So, as a child, she had seen a picture of a grey squirrel in a book, but never a real one. She was taken to Hyde Park to see the squirrels. The book had said they were significantly bigger than the native red squirrel and there was an illustration of it on a branch but no scale. She was looking around for something the size of a large dog.  Her mother and father were saying "there's one" and she couldn't spot them.   Very disappointed to find eventually that they were no bigger than her foot. 

Yes it's the badger.  However, this answer may depend on whether artoo has branched out in his wild release schemes from his hugely successful 90s campaign of reintroducing the wild Razzle

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