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.

@Knotaknitter

I shall laugh heartily if she decides to lay in the plant pot rather than the wonderful house.

🙂 one of the ducks from our local wild colony did this in a neighbour's garden. No eggs hatched though, sadly.

There is a little heart. Bit twee. Came on the cheap house to lock the door with if needed.

And yes, laying in the plants has been said. Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.

Meanwhile DH is being a knob and I shouted at him. It is very thick. Nearly as thick as him 😂

To add. Duck island is temporary. It will come in and be destroyed after the summer. Just gives us time to build something better.

Well, if the river Thames has frozen partially im sure your pond is fine

link

@Soubriquet

Well, if the river Thames has frozen partially im sure your pond is fine

link

Oh wow, that doesn't happen often.
Does scare me a bit, heard tales locally when this was all fields of kids being pulled out after falling through the ice so always a bit wary of it.

Love the heart. And the “D”h

Love the duck house, but don't destroy it, surely there is another pond owner who could take it to attract their own ducks

It's mating season...... They have spent most of the day scrapping, chasing, flying off in a huff and generally shouting at each other. We now seem to have reached an impasse and they are chilling on the bank. I think it's going to be a long few weeks.

Brilliant! How long before eggs might appear?

@NoGoodPunsLeft

Brilliant! How long before eggs might appear?

The female’s will start dragging grass etc into the duck houses and then vanish into them. From that point it’s about 28 days. The female will stick to a routine of coming out once a day to eat and wash.

We’ve got a week or two of violence first so hopefully end March beginning of April?

Love it

So why do the females play hard to get?

@RandomMess

So why do the females play hard to get?

Not so much hard to get as try and escape I think. Duck mating is a horrible time, it’s brutal, violent and sometimes deadly:

nypost.com/2017/05/06/dont-be-fooled-ducks-are-sadistic-raping-monsters/

Don't spoil it. I'm envisioning candles, rose petals, duck food...

@forrestgreen

Don't spoil it. I'm envisioning candles, rose petals, duck food...

Oh I wish. There are currently 2 males having an epic scrap outside the front door. I need to go out and sort my car out (someone managed to run me into a hedge on a country lane last week so I need to attempt to get the scratches out) but I don't know if I'm brave enough to get near the warfare 😂

That bad 😱

My usual breaking up a scrap is a bucket of cold water but I can see that wouldn't work as well on ducks.

@Knotaknitter

My usual breaking up a scrap is a bucket of cold water but I can see that wouldn't work as well on ducks.

We have done that in the past, problem is they get so engrossed in the display and the fights they seem to lose all common sense. One year a cat managed to get hold of one of the males because they were so busy strutting their stuff on the bank neither noticed it behind them. Fortunately it only resulted in a few lost feathers but they were lucky.

I've been watching them display this morning. I filmed a little so will try and upload it later. The males do a kind of somersault under the water, then stretch their wings and groom themselves. Quite how this says 'come and get me' I don't know.

I did venture out briefly and things seem to have calmed down a bit for now.

Have the frogs and toads returned yet ? I expect you'll hear them before you see them.

I absolutely love this thread!

I'd forgotten about this thread!!

Oh wow I can't believe this thread is still going! I've nominated it for Classics

At my (all girls) school we had a duck pond, around this time of year there was an informal general policing of the pond at lunchtimes to break up what we perceived to be the violent raping of female ducks! Generally involved shouting at them and throwing the odd stick in the water so not particularly successful. In many ways a good discussion point for young teenage girls around consent though, we all had very strong views that the male ducks were very wrong and evil! It is particularly brutal though, I struggle to think of any other species where there seems to be the same threat of death alongside mating...

@WildRosie

Have the frogs and toads returned yet ? I expect you'll hear them before you see them.

No, all quiet on that front, but our population was down a fair bit last year in favour of the newts, so be interesting to see which prevails this year.

@Cavagirl it is quite upsetting to watch, first year we were here I was out shouting at ducks more times than I care to count, but then I figured I needed to step back. If I'm out and they are scrapping/raping/pillaging I'll shout at them, but I don't go out of my way to deal with it anymore IYSWIM.

Duck Island has been accepted happily (or as DS has taken to calling it, Desert Island Ducks), we've only got Duncan and Egwina today so its reasonably peaceful. They have been on the island and poking their heads in the house so we might get a nest in there. Whether the other mating pair return and take the other house remains to be seen....

Water levels have dropped slightly, still high but not worryingly so anymore. Be interesting to see the February video and see how it rose and fell.

We interrupted a duck raping session once

A poor female was being drowned by 3 males. She was right next to the bank so dh stepped down, scared the males off and picked up the female.

He placed her on the river bank and she just flopped, completely exhausted.

We waited until she got her breath back as the males kept getting closer.

Eventually she managed to stand up, ruffle her feathers and fly away...the males chased after her but I hope she managed to land somewhere safe

@Soubriquet I confess my little dream of sitting with a glass of something watching ducks happily Bob along was somewhat shattered when Duncan tried to rip the throat out of some other passing mallard.

Embarrassing confession.
Duncan is called Duncan because the first mating season we were here he was attacking The then nameless Egwina. He was pushing her under water. I didn’t know at the time that was mating behaviour and I I exclaimed to DH “oh! He’s dunking her!”