The ducklings are doing well.
Twelve eggs were laid. Nine hatched and six are thriving. What happened to the other three is a mystery…

 

Ducklings are an easy meal. They are quite defenceless if caught out in the open. It’s likely that predators such as bigger birds or mammals snatched them to feed their own young.  We’ve seen crows, hawks, herons and owls hunting in daylight in our garden and we know there are foxes badgers and cats in the neighbourhood at night.

Anyway the remaining six ducklings are growing nicely. They won’t be able to fly for a couple of months so they stay close to their mum for protection. We feed them scraps but they find most of their food in our garden, in the pond and surrounding fields. Today they were hunting through the grass for tasty morsels such as insects and slugs and they seemed to be eating grass seed too.

They have grown so quickly since they first hatched on 9th June.

I think they’re too big now to be carried off easily by marauding birds so hopefully all six will survive.

Fingers crossed!     Gillian 😉