Introduction

We had never heard of runner ducks until, early in 2003, my brother Helmut in Germany told me about these comical creatures which looked rather like a walking stick umbrella (I've since heard them described as "bowling pins on legs", very apt). He had seen a regional television programme, which had featured the owner of four of these ducks whose garden had been depleted of slugs and snails, and all the children in the neighbourhood were bringing boxes full of these molluscs which the ducks devoured.

Our garden was chock-a-block with slugs and snails. There you are, my brother said, that's what you want: runner ducks! He also sent me a picture of these ducks, and I was smitten from the start. They were now at the top of my wish list, and I spent quite some time looking at web sites with information on runner ducks.

The year went on, there were always other priorities, but towards the end of October I got the biggest and most wonderful birthday surprise: 16 family members and friends rolled up with all the equipment needed and more than enough food for the day. Val had made me a cake in the shape of a duck pond with lots of little ducks swimming on it,

and that was the first clue I had what my surprise was going to be.

Everybody "mucked in" and created a huge duck pond for me on a site in the garden which had been full of rubble. All I needed now were the ducks.

It was February 2004 when our fawn and white runner ducks came into our life, Valentine's Day. A very nice lady breeder in the West Midlands had reserved two ducks and a drake for us, but when we went to collect them on that day, along with bags of food, we also acquired a second drake. The journey home was uneventful apart from little bursts of subdued chatter and the occasional noise of sliding webbed feet in the huge cardboard box.

The "girls'" names had been decided upon for some time. My friend Pearl had given me birthday money for a duck, so the duck with the green beak was named "Pearl" (the human Pearl looks great in green!), and the other one "Gertie" after me (I was called Gertrud after my mother), and wasn't there also a "Gertie the duck" in the cartoon series on television "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", many years ago?. The "boys" just HAD to be named "Rudolpho" and "Valentino", in honour of the day.

My wonderful husband John had built a des-res duck house for our new arrivals and, as recommended by the lady we bought them from, we kept them in there for two days to get them used to their new home. Then came the moment for them to be let out into their new world, much much bigger than they had been used to. I opened the door and ..... they wouldn't come out. I waited all morning and still they hadn't dared put outside more than the odd beak. So I grabbed one after the other and carried them out to the pond. The first one I grabbed turned out to have been Pearl, and I set her down gently by the side of the pond. The noise! The desperate cries to be back with the others as she thrashed through the water towards the duckhouse! I felt terrible.

It only took a couple of days before the cautious exit out of their house in the mornings became the mad scramble it is now! And after a very short time they considered my birthday duck pond their home, spending all day on the duck house side of it or on the opposite side, drinking lots and very noisily, but not swimming in it since Pearl's mad thrash through the water in an attempt to get back to the others on that first day when I had grabbed her. Getting them in at night is another tale, and how it all went on can be seen from the snippets of my correspondence with my brother Helmut, who first acquainted me with these endearing ducks: