Duck Tales! (Still not what I expected to wake up to this morning)

[AlanThePig]

With the last thread almost full and a new clutch of ducklings I thought it might be time for another thread.

So this morning I was happily working away in the front garden when I happened to glance at the duck house, and saw two faces staring back....
Now I know our resident duck Egwina was on eggs, but I was convinced they were due to hatch somewhere around the end of the month. Quite surprised to spot ducklings.

As the day has worn on 14 little fluffy yellow ducklings have slowly emerged into the sunlight and launched themselves (not very gracefully) into the water. I say 14, I'm not 100% certain yet as they aren't keeping still enough to count and there might be more inside.

Difficult to photograph all together at present as some are in and some are out and they haven't yet come close enough to see. There was 12 (I think!) in this photo and 2 on the deck.
Congratulations Egwina!

How lovely! Congratulations

Placemarking!

Wonderful!!

Quacking update op!!

I guess the feed bill is about to go through the roof...

Welcome back Alan what lovely news and pics. You may need to crowd fund the duck food for this lot! 🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆🦆

Yay!!! New fluffy bundles!

A bit more than last year. Hopefully that cat learned it’s lesson

Thank you, I can't believe your other thread was a year ago

So many little ducks!

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

Hurrah! More ducky goodness!

Woo hoo!

Fourteen? Wow, Egwina's outdone herself! They are so cute!

Congratulations!
Egwina deserved mum of the year!

She’s ushered them all back in again for a nap. Although there seems to be 14 now I don’t expect that many to survive. The two who were late coming out seemed a little smaller than the others and last time we had one just vanish. Fingers crossed though! Duncan came back as well a few hours ago. Wonder if this lot will bully him like the last did?

The cat that took two last year sadly died on the road just after Christmas. He was about the only stalking cat we really had but will obviously be a bit more on alert myself this time. The heron has been about over the last few days so he’s one to watch. A lot of the bank is netted at the moment to stop the Canadian Geese nesting so this will also hopefully keep the ducklings a little bit safer too.

Time to order food! To be honest the pleasure of being able to watch ducklings drop into the water for the first time is well worth the cost of food.

I was a lurker on your other thread!! Very happy to see a brand new, shiny thread and lots more cute wee ducklings.

Who's Duncan? Daddy Duck.

I followed last year when you started the thread but haven't read any recent updates. Did you ever get the improved duck House built?

Love them. Our local birds had 12 last week but only 5 now sadly.

It’s sad that you do lost babies but I guess that’s why they have so many.

So many predators...even fish will take a small duck if it’s hungry enough.

But yes you should open a good fund me.... gonna cost you a bomb to feed all them babies

Hello @AlanThePig! How wonderful to see the new life ... We will all try to not get too invested!

How cute

@Donatella

I followed last year when you started the thread but haven't read any recent updates. Did you ever get the improved duck House built?

We moved over to classics. A few ups and downs including kamikaze baby pigeon rescue.

Duckingham palace is still not built, though will hopefully be afloat by the summer. We’ve had to make several design changes as a pair of Canada geese have been trying to nest here and they love a platform, so the large platform plans for the new house have had to change.
The geese were here for several weeks and caused carnage, they were messy in the extreme, got extremely grumpy with us for just opening the door and started to destroy the lily pads and grasses. I netted off most of the banks to discourage them and hopefully they have now gone for good but any large floating platform is gold for them to nest on.

Duncan is dad yes, I’ll try and upload a pic of him in a moment for those unfamiliar with all things duck.

Following...

Egwina and duncan.

They're gorgeous 😍