Another pleasant surprise this evening when a mother duck turned up with 9 new ducklings. Mother had a good feed but ducklings only hatched this morning so still using the yoke sac.
This is good news at this time of year when plenty of cover and food available, so survival chances are greater. In saying that, I saw a black back gull grabbing a fully grown duck tonight but it managed to escape - minus a few feathers !
So we now have the newly hatched 9, plus the mother with 10 about a week old, then the mother with 8 quite well grown, plus another 3 mothers with one each.
It has been a successful year on the river as far as Mallards are concerned.
However we again have a problem with Duke who is again off his food for several days and appears to be ill again. I have been monitoring him and am hoping he can throw off whatever is ailing him. I did notice last Wednesday he was around the sewage outfall in the sea. This would be a perfect way of ingesting a stomach bug !
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