There are few creatures more endearing than ducklings, a point we have had plenty of opportunity to ponder at Forge Cottage. Though we have only a very small pond, mallard are frequent visitors in the spring, attracted by the corn put out for my free-range bantams. Last year a duck we named Chris laid a large clutch of eggs in our front garden. She hatched 11 ducklings, and as soon as they were all dry, she marched them off in search of water. Ducks are not the world’s greatest mothers, and subsequent sightings of Chris confirmed the fact that she soon lost almost all of her brood.

This year she was back again, and laid another clutch. I’m certain she is the same duck, as she has very distinct colouring: black, with a white bib and white pinion (flight) feathers. Thus she’s not a pure-bred mallard, but a typical denizen of the ponds on Bardwell village green. However, her boyfriends have all had the appearance of a genuine wild mallard. Once a duck has started incubating, the drake generally loses interest in her, and this was the case with Chris and her male friends.

Chris laid 16 eggs. Once she had completed her clutch she started incubating, a lengthy business that takes almost a month. Three-weeks into her incubation one of my bantams went broody, so I took six eggs from Chris and gave them to the bantam. Ducklings all hatch within hours of each other, so they can all leave the nest together. Chris appeared on our lawn on a Monday morning with nine of the cutest ducklings in tow, while at the same time the bantam hatched off another six.

Improving the chances of survival
To improve the ducklings’ chances of survival I decided to keep Chris’s brood in the front garden. A rabbit-proof fence, with a mesh sufficient to keep ducklings in, surrounds it. That first morning Chris marched her brood around the garden looking for an escape route, but once she had decided there wasn’t one she settled down to life in the garden, only occasionally flying off for a bit of exercise. The ducklings soon discovered the goldfish pond, and the fact that regular supplies of food were provided for them. Mother ducks don’t feed their offspring, but they do lead them to places where the feeding should be good. They also brood their offspring regularly.

Meanwhile the bantam and her six ducklings enjoyed a free-range life with the other bantams, and also enjoyed a liberal supply of food. Mallard ducklings are great eaters. Our lot started with chick starter crumbs, soon graduating to growers’ pellets, before moving on to anything available, from bread to wheat. Such a plentiful supply of food ensured that they all grew quickly, and at three weeks the front garden brood were let out (the garden was suffering) into the wide world. I half expected Chris to march them off to the nearest pond, but she wisely decided that the feeding was so good here there wasn’t much point in doing so.

The meeting of Chris’s nine and the bantam’s six was highly amusing: all the ducklings intermingled, but eventually they all sorted themselves out back into two families. One of the bantam’s six disappeared overnight, perhaps to a stoat, but at the time of writing 14 month-old ducklings are growing fast, and already looking quite mature. Twelve of them take after their mother’s colouring, while just two look like pure mallard.   

Fourteen ducklings are rather a lot to have around, so we are now looking forward to them learning to fly, and departing for the local ponds. However, mallard don’t start flying until they are at least 50 days old. Only another 21 days to go…

A Bobwhite quail
I was away birdwatching in Northern Greece in early June, when my wife Jan heard and then spotted a mystery bird here at Bowbeck. Jan knows her birds pretty well, but she had never seen anything like this individual before, though she concluded it was probably a quail of some sort. She managed to get a photograph that confirmed the bird’s identity as a bobwhite quail, a North American species that is commonly kept in captivity in this country. It reappeared again the morning after I came home, so I also managed to both see it and photograph it. The name, by the way, is onomatopoeic, for the cock’s call sounds very much like Bob White. I’m intrigued as to where it came from, so if you have lost a quail, do let me know.