Friday 18 January 2013

Talking of Wild Ducks!


Once upon a time in late August 2004 there was a field with some faulty terracotta land drains running through it down to my ditch and I thought, that low wet area might make a good pond.



So I spoke to a nice man with a digger and I said dig until you can't get rid of any more of the spoil making it bigger rather than deeper.
So he dug


 
and scraped


 And dug till there was no where left to spread the clay and also because it was already starting to fill.


My two eldest boys thought it was quite amazing.


Fast forward to May 2007, the Pond is a bit choked with Algae.
But along comes a wild Mummy Duck ( a Mallard) and these were the first ducklings.




Fast forward to 2009, another Mummy Duck or possibly the same one.
The Pond is now stabilising and the Water lilies well established.






Sadly we have not had any more wild Ducklings since.
As Karen mentioned below we did have two clutches of eggs last year both robbed out by predators and I think the Duck was taken as well as she was never seen again and then a few days later the Drake stopped looking for her and he has not been seen since.

What we have had though in 2012 were three clutches of Morhens.
Morhens are amazing they chase the wild Rabbits all over the field and raid the Chicken Coop for food! it will be interesting to see how they fare this year with the Domestic Ducks competing on the Pond of for that matter how the Domestic Ducks handle the wild ones that are bound to turn up.



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