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.

What a lovely thread, Egwina is definitely in Duck heaven

Op thank you for sharing with us! It’s a lovely thread. That is one fabulous pontoon and ducky house. Mrs duck choose very well when looking for a new slave!! I hope they give you as much pleasure as they are to us.
I’ll happily be a neighbour and have visiting ducks! We have a family of swans, two ducks, a hedge full of various birds and some otters. (We are canal based).

@Bargebill19

Op thank you for sharing with us! It’s a lovely thread. That is one fabulous pontoon and ducky house. Mrs duck choose very well when looking for a new slave!! I hope they give you as much pleasure as they are to us. I’ll happily be a neighbour and have visiting ducks! We have a family of swans, two ducks, a hedge full of various birds and some otters. (We are canal based).

Swans are my dream. I would be thrilled. Moorhens too actually. Funnily enough when we first spotted the house for sale and did a drive by there were four or five lovely little moorhens on here. They were gone when we moved in and we haven't seen a single one since. We did have a pair of Canada Geese at one point but I had to stop feeding them as I found myself out every night cleaning up after them and they started to get quite hissy when we came out of the front door. They were also bullying Egwina a bit so they were instantly cut off. Not seen them for a while happily.

How lovely to be beside a canal, watching life go by. I'd love that. Very special thing to have a body of water so close and to enjoy watching the life it supports.

Cute photo. 🙂

For quite a few years we used to get Greylag geese in our garden - one year we had 14!
Rarely see them now, though we do have tawny owls; I heard them last night.

A farm next door growing up had moor hens on their pond. Baby ones are the cutest things ever.

Loving these ducklings though.

your Canada geese may have migrated? But I thought they came ot us in the winter...

@steppemum

your Canada geese may have migrated? But I thought they came ot us in the winter...

Looking back through my photos this was the last I have of them (bullying Duncan as well!) and that was mid April. Not seen them since then.

Still ten happily. Came home earlier to the heron sitting on the bank and ended up diving out of the car and chasing it off 😂

Herons have such a malevolent look about them. The child catcher of the avian world.

Duck Granny 😂😂😂

Love their fluffy butts so much 😍😍😍

@MissTheodore

Herons have such a malevolent look about them. The child catcher of the avian world.

Indeed. I do love watching him normally though. At some point someone introduced goldfish in the pond, which we really don't want so if he comes and pulls one or two out its a good day!

(pic from before I painted the duck house over the summer)

I think you nwill find your Canada Geese come bakc in the next month, and spend the winter with you

I love this thread. If you don't mind me asking OP, did the pond add much to your house price? Just something vague like double the price of next door or an extra 5%
I'm quite fancying my own large pond

Some added goldfish to your pond?

So they see it as a communal pond or something?

A lovely thread indeed, for dark times.

I'm not sure the geese will come back. It was a fleeting thing this year, not seen them before or since. They possibly reside on a pond at the golf course up the road so hopefully they will stay there.

Unsure who put the goldfish in, but they have been in many years judging by the size of them. Neither DH or I fish but from what we gather it's mostly roach and rudd in there. We have had a camera under the water which was enormous fun and there are so many tiny little fishies! We want to keep it as natural as possible, not in the least because we have frogs, newts and toads in there that could all be unbalanced.

The pond didn't add anything to the house price really. We bought it privately via the owners so no EA involved, basically sat down over a coffee, the owner said next door sold for X 18 months ago is that ok? We said yes and bought the house (we hadn't actually seen inside it at that time we agreed to buy, we'd just fallen in love with the pond so the inside didn't matter).
It's a marmite thing though, I can see lots of people would absolutely hate it, especially with young kids.

Anyway, ducklings. Growing fast, still ten and they seem to love duck island now!

I bet someone got fed up of their pet fish and decided to “set them free”

Wow. What a lovely post. Hope they do ok OP. loving all the photos and updates. 😃

@Soubriquet

I bet someone got fed up of their pet fish and decided to “set them free”

I suspect so. We've had neighbours knock on in the past and ask to put frogs etc in and the lady next door closed her pond over this summer so transferred me some lovely lily pads so I can imagine people throwing in their pets.

The goldfish seem to come to the surface nearest the house when the weather gets colder. Plan is this year to try and catch as many as we can and rehome them to a neighbour who has an ornamental pond.

Been a fair bit colder here today and Ive watched Egwina tuck the babies under her as much as she can, they have grown quickly though and are a week old tomorrow.

This is one of the nicest threads I’ve come across ever on Mumsnet! Would love to have this in my garden, I don’t think I’d ever clean the house if this was outside though!😁

Some sad news.

Woke up this morning to Egwina and Duncan shouting, loudly. Shot out to see what was going on. Only 8 ducklings. Then Egwina flew off.

DH and I searched but no sign of the missing ones so we reviewed the CCTV to see a neighbours cat take both from the bank in one swoop. Well over half an hour later Egwina wasn't back and we were starting to worry she wasn't going to return. Fortunately 40 very worrying minutes later she landed again.

I'm gutted. I've cut back all the grasses today so the bloody cat cant hide in them and blocked off the bit of fence it uses as a route. I'm also buying the biggest bloody super soaker I can find.

I've been ever so unsettled all day. 😭

Bastard cat!!!! So sorry OP cats are dicks sometimes, my cat brought back his first hunt for me and it was a robin, I was like ffs, so I got him a bell, still managed to bring me a bat one time too, hope mum and the rest of the babies are doing ok now :(

So sorry OP what a shame

Oh no. Poor little things.

Oh no so sorry, love your ducks hate cats! Fingers crossed for the other 8.

Bastard of a cat!🤬