March08

Sunday, 2nd Charlotte's birthday and Mothering Sunday

I was certainly blessed with cards, plants, flowers and gifts from my two wonderful children. I always say it's not at all necessary - but it IS lovely being spoiled!

Huge THANK YOU once more to Carl for spending his precious time to sort this computer out and getting me up and running as I like it. Now if I can manage to get some new photos in here I'll be totally happy!

Since moving both food containers near the house last Wednesday and chasing off the hosts of pheasants we've been saving about half the daily duck food rations. Our flat-footed friends soon got used to the new regime and have been spending much more time near the house - which pleases me a lot as I love watching them. With more Spring-like weather they appear to be more confident and no longer spend all their time together. Small groups of 3 or 4, or even just one duck, are quite happy to forage by themselves.

I seem to have made a rod for my own back, though, with my occasional offerings of rice and pasta. As soon as they spot me now they come rushing up all excitedly, Fanny foremost, and expect "goodies". I always feel very guilty when I don't have anything to give them.

Fanny is still being a pain at night with her insistence on making tours round the hut before going up the ramp, 4 solo tours she took the other night after having gone round first with Circle and Primmie and then with Sweetie. I took a couple of bamboo sticks for 'arm extensions' the following night because I can get the bottom 5 in easily that way if they're reluctant to retire. But that caused massive panic with the top lot and drew out the going-to-bed procedure longer than if I'd waited for Fanny to complete her rounds!

Tuesday, 4th March 2008

There was ice on the top pond and buckets this morning, but the sun soon came out again and we have another glorious day:

Friday, 7th March 2008

Had some surprise visitors last night. About quarter to six, sitting in the conservatory waiting for "ducky bedtime", we saw a pair of mallards circle round several times and then swooshing in to land on the duck pond - causing panic among our lot who shot out at the opposite end. A few minutes later a few of them [girls first, I noticed!] plucked up courage, went back in and tried to push the intruders out. When I went down at six the duck and drake were sitting at the edge of John's winter digging you can see in the photo above. The drake was making lots of noise, probably arguing with ours, but they both took off as I approached and landed in the field.

Now I couldn't possibly say that they were the same pair that 'guested' with us last year, these two,

but it is a possibility. They were still in the field when I was putting our second lot to bed [and Fanny was being a pain and a half last night with her reluctance to go into the hut] but I've not seen them today. Maybe they'll come back to roost tonight?

Sunday, 9th March 2008

No, they didn't come back last night - well, not as I saw - but I did see them circling this morning as I was filling the water buckets down at the duck pond. Spotting me must have put them off - they didn't land.

The pheasants still come around, especially first thing in the morning before the ducks are let out. This shot on the left was taken through the window after I counted 9 hen pheasants plus a squirrel, pidgeon and a blackbird, all picking up the grains the ducks had spilled the day before. I don't mind that, they're welcome to these pickings.

I took a few photos this morning to show how far our ducks and drakes spread these days; not within their 'sleeping groups', either. I'm not sure whether it's because they're trying to avoid the boys' attentions or whether they're just more confident now.

Two of them had even sneaked through a hole in the horse fence and gone into the big field. The two arrows point to how far Anabelle and Decibels had gone before I called them back.

Captain rushed up to the E-fence and tried to call them to order, but gave up as he couldn't get through.

After I'd gone into the field to chase the two girls back I noticed two patches of white. On closer examination they turned out to be huge amounts of feathers, and it looked as if 2 pidgeons had been got there:

I suspect the killer came out of the sky as I've never known foxes leave any feathers.

[The arrow points to the 2 escapee ducks making their way back.]

Thursday, 13th March 2008

What a day we've had today!

Why do you think our flat-footed friends are taking their morning rest period up near the garage?

And why are they queueing outside the gate in the fence which is closed to them?

Ah, you see, I got one of my delayed birthday presents today. You might just make it out in the photo above, the pump standing next to the duck hut? Yes, the operation to empty the big pond started this morning.

It didn't go smoothly, though - something to do with the date today? After John had fetched the pump first thing this morning, set everything up and went to start the pump ........... the pull string broke. Back to the shop he went, waited ages for them to repair it, back home, started up again, ran for 20 minutes, it stopped. And absolutely refused to start again. When the technician eventually came out [after lunch] he couldn't start it either.

A second pump was delivered about 3 in the afternoon. This one worked well:

Because we were both out there watching and doing bits of tidying up near the ditch I let the ducks go into the field. They had a LOVELY time,

and came back all by themselves when they felt the time was right:

It was a bit of a miserable afternoon, dark and rainy, and when 6 o' clock came and our 5 'bottom dwellers' were waiting at the gate to go to bed we packed in proceedings until the morning.

The 5 skirted around their strange looking pond very suspiciously and didn't even attempt to go in. We're planning to make and early start tomorrow!

Sunday, 16th March 2008

I've just realized that I haven't written since Thursday evening. It was tough, though, I can't remember a time when I've been so worn out and aching all over. It was this thick mud at the bottom,

the consistency of a very sticky plaster mix and almost 10 inches deep in places, which was especially hard to shift.

The whole exercise took longer than I expected, and the poor old ducks have been deprived of their favourite pond for a whole 3 days. But they WERE let into the field in compensation, something they took full advantage of. Putting aside the back-breaking clearance of the bottom of the pond there were some advantages, too, like finding out exactly where the deepest part of it was. I shifted all the plant containers there and rearranged things. Nothing appears to have survived of the previous reeds and bullrushes, but John treated me to some new ones, and I spent all morning yesterday trying to make them duck~ and waterhen-proof with netting. We shall see ...........

We also found a few things, the tally was:

4 eggs [1 new-ish, 3 old and black]
2 soft shells [I suspect Pinky ... there's help coming up in the IRDA newsletter with an article about what to do about these]
4 frogs, 2 large 2 medium
loads of stones, small to huge in size

We started letting the water back in at 12 noon yesterday. 3½ hours later it looked like this:

I was pleased that it had started to rain - they say 'every little helps ...

This morning the water level was about a foot and a half from the top when I let the 5 out:

I had been convinced that one of them - Pinky in particular as she has that reputation - would go straight to the overhanging leaves of the reed basket and try to tug them out, but she didn't!

I also hung around with the camera thinking that the top 9 would come and reclaim the big pond, but no. They must have remembered that they were not allowed in the enclosure the last 3 days and went into the orchard instead. You may just be able to discern Rellchen [arrow] in the distance in this shot:

It wasn't long after, however, when I looked after changing out of my muddy and wet trousers, that the top 9 had joined in. None of them were spending much time on the pond, though. As it's still raining they were all extremely busy snorkling through the grass for 'goodies'.

I went to check on the water level at just gone 4, and the pond was nearly full.

Where were the ducks, though? A quick check found there were in the field, all except Rellchen who tried like mad to rejoin them through a part of the fence where, unusually, the rabbits hadn't chewed through while the power was off.

I chased them round to the back where I had taken one section of the fence down while emptying the pond [that's my next job, by the way, mending and re-siting the fence], and Rellchen rejoined them.

They then all spent a happy time circling round and round the new plants:

I turned off the water at just gone 5, so it took 29 hours to refill the pond!

Saturday, 22nd March 2008

It's been a funny kind of day today, funny weather, I mean. From dull, cold and rainy first thing to snow/sleet showers, then bright sunshine, snow showers, hail showers, bright sunshine again ........ just like an April day ought to be.

Had a shock when I picked up the eggs from the bottom hut: there were specks of fresh blood, and looking round I could see that Pinky was limping and her leg looked as if it had blood on it. My first instinct was to try and catch her and isolate her, but then I thought both those actions would traumatise her. I decided to keep a close eye on her instead. She kept up well with the others in all their wanderings, limping a bit, but by lunchtime I couldn't detect any limp at all. I can only assume that she injured herself in the hectic rush to get out of the hut and into the pond.

My "defences" around the new plants appear to have worked, although I must admit I thought they had been breached the very first morning after I'd finished. Looking from the house I could see a waterhen sitting right on top, like this:

Okay, I cheated. I stuck the waterhen on a picture of the reeds to show where she was. I'd covered both baskets with stiffish black netting, and on both baskets the netting had been "dished in" making hollows - but so far no nests have been started; just the overhanging leaves have been picked off [the ones that Pinky so kindly left in peace].

Wednesday, 26th March 2008

Great egg day today, we had 10, almost the possible maximum of 11. There had been 6 in the top hut a couple of times before, but what particularly pleased me this morning was that there were FOUR eggs in the bottom hut, which meant that all 4 girls there had laid and that Pinky must have overcome the soft shell problem, hurrah!

I was tickled to see that 3 light green/blue eggs were inside the nest box at the top and the 3 white ones outside it. Was there discrimination going on and the "mixes" were prevented from entering the box? Naw, just accident I suppose, as there had definitely been days when I'd found a mix of colours in the nest box.

Sunday, 30th March 2008

The drakes' hormone levels have made Captain power crazy. I saw him in action this morning after I'd driven the bigger group into the duck pond, just to make a point, because for three days they'd been avoiding the big pond and been hanging around the house most of the time. I had wondered whether something to frighten them had happened down there, and I suppose that was Captain. He first went for Primmie and Rellchen who were copying the mating ritual [lots of the girls are copying what the boys are doing], and then chased out every one of the 9 who fled out of the enclosure. I was amazed. You would have thought the bigger group with two boys would have asserted itself, but no, they must acknowledge that the big pond is home ground for Captain and his 4 girls as their hut is down there.

I had wondered why I'd seen so much of the ducks near the house. Anabelle has always done her own thing and she often comes all by herself to join the 9. She's with them here, near the road:

Then Captain comes up with his 3 white girls:

But they all keep a safe distance apart:

I wonder how long this is going to go on, after all the top pond is rather small for 9 of them.

Nothing to do with ducks, but I was lucky this morning to catch Harlequin's amazing fish pond drinking ritual:

I find her amazing. I mean she's been blind for almost a year, and yet she gets around so well!