NOT what I expected to wake up to this morning...

[AlanThePig]

Some of you might recall we have a rather large pond in our garden. On it we have a pair of ducks. First day of lockdown appeared ten, beautiful ducklings. They grew up, flew away and that was that until next spring.

Except I woke up to this......
There are ten more (seven in this photo) and I can only assume the warm weather has thoroughly confused her.

I'm now going spend the next few months fretting over bloody wildlife.

Gives you a few months to save on food costs and fund duckingham palace!

Awww they'll be back soon enough.

Thanks so much for your posts, it's been lovely to follow along. I'm rubbish at remembering to look at blogs but I'll keep a look out on here for you next season!

Thank you, thank you, thank you @AlanThePig

I once had a card from a good friend saying "I'm sad if you're sad, I'm glad if you're glad".

That's the way to feel about the ducks!

Onwards ... And may there always be more ducks!

De-lurking to say I’ve loved this thread, along with my 20 year old son who asks me for Duck updates, going to check out your blog 🙂

Oh no, your babies have left you. This is so sad

So sad that all the babies have now moved to pastures new 😢
I so hope they return one day 🦆

Also, how do I find your blog @AlanThePig?

Just caught up, glad you made a blog, such a great thread

Can’t believe we are still frozen here. I’ve never known the pond be solid for longer than a day or two. Unsurprisingly this means there are still no ducks here.
Really twiddling my thumbs now, can’t do much outside and as the old duck house is still frozen solid in the water I can’t get it in.
Weather is forecast to get a bit warmer here next week so have everything crossed for that. Looks like I shall be forced to spend the day catching up with the Duke of Hastings as I’ve got little else to do 😉

@rainbowstardrops I’m still figuring out how this blog stuff goes, but it’s here: ayearonthepond.blogspot.com/

Forgot to add, thank you all too. You’re keeping me sane through lockdown and giving me a reason to actually do something.

Hopefully this time without daily duck maintenance will give you breathing time to prepare for next year. Potentially I suppose you could have both Egwina and Dot returning to nest, twice even, so that's a lot of duck house to make and duck food to save for.

Well, the prodigal ducks have returned.
Egwina and Duncan came home some time overnight. They wasted no time in making their presence known to DH this morning, shouting loudly for breakfast.

I've just walked past the window as they were heading over for lunch. Made me laugh. The pond is starting to defrost for the first time in over a week. The ice is still there in some parts but is slightly under the surface of the water, this means when I looked out of the window I was greeted by ducks walking on water....

Hurrah! More Duck News!

Haha @AlanThePig, I was watching some swans the other day whilst on my daily exercise & the lake was frozen - they flew in and were slip sliding all over the place!! 😂 They looked very confused!

They are such freeloaders 😂

Yay

Ahh op I'm so glad I found this thread again! I stated reading it a few weeks ago and then my page crashed and I couldn't find it again! I almost stated a thread to ask someone to link me back to it

Love it and going to read your blog, I hope you will keep us updated if they come back again!

How lovely to see them again.
So pleased they're back.

They've settled back into the usual routine of breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack anyway.
Best order some more food then 😂

Lovely - I used to live in a London semi, a stone's throw from the busy North Circular, with a garden with biggish pond so we got mallard pairs arriving from time to time. Eventually, one female was very taken with the idea of laying her eggs in our small back garden and she tried several times in several flowerbeds over two years. Eventually, she was sitting on eggs in a covered alcove between a shed and the house wall (with only ONE way out!!!). One morning I got up to find no eggs, no duck, a few feathers around - the fox had been. I always hoped that she had got away unscathed. She didn't come back again (can't blame her). I wish we'd had a duckhouse on the pond and she might have had a chance.

Just drawn the curtains. We now have five. Another pair and a single male. Might be our grown up ducklings but realistically we will never know.

Definitely beat order more food. 😂

🥰

See @AlanThePig, you haven't quite cut the apron strings yet. They heard about your empty nest syndrome and came back to cheer you up.

Yay! This is excellent news. Your babies are coming home

Lovely to catch up op!!
As the dm of adult dc it doesn't get less stressful just because they have left home!
You will still worry!!
Congratulations on a job bloody well done! And to your dh for his groundsman role!!