Thursday 22 July 2010

Catching The Rays



After the miserable rainy days, some welcome summer sunshine today. The Pen is on the mend and has started chasing the ducks again and catching the rays. After 10 days I gave her the last dose of antibiotics yesterday, worryingly there is still a bit of blood staining on her back and the new feather growth has been damaged. I am hoping this will not stop her ability to fly in a few weeks time.


























































Meanwhile Nipper the duck is enjoying his new freedom in the river, I tried for 2 days to leave him there but he was determined to follow me when I left. I did introduce him to Jemima and his 4 siblings and they all seemed accepting . Today he was happy to stay with his new found relatives, and was showing the joy of life by dashing and diving around the moat. ( see short vid ).


Another heart warming scene caught my attention the other day when I noticed a lone duckling peep-ing for it's mum, where it came from I have no idea. Later in the day I noticed that the mother of the year with 11 ducklings now had 12, she had allowed the lost duckling into her family ! ( so much for those who say ducks are bad mothers ). What a fantastic mother she is ! This is now three days later and she has definitely adopted the lost duckling, it is the smallest of the 12 and easy to spot.
















1 comment:

Debra Allan said...

Awwww, how sweet of the Mummy duck. Great to see Nipper settling into wildlife and fingers crossed for the pens full recovery. :-)