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Monday 26th January Hi there! January's big news is that we have been allowed out into the main garden! With all this wet weather, our beaks have done so much damage to the grass in Duck Garden that, in a bid to preserve what is left of it, Caroline is letting us out for a few hours a day to forage in the rest of the garden. We can't believe our luck! There are so many slugs and worms to eat and the grass is so long and tasty. Click here to see us Out and About! If you want some more duck inspired smiles, why not investigate Caroline's latest page on the site. With great pictures from Nancy and a link from Candy, it may be the start of something big! PS. I am eight months old now!
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Sunday 29th February Hello again! Can you tell I am having fun this month? That is me on my tippy toes with my head in a pot. We have been allowed out to forage around the main garden most days and we have even been behaving better. It is so much fun, we forget to quack at every little thing we see or hear. Our favourite area at the moment is down by the back door and the main patio where there are lots of pots for us to check out. Caroline can sit in the window and watch us and take photos from there.
One day, we spent the afternoon lazing in the hellebore bed and another was spent hanging out in a light dusting of snow! There have been some very sunny days indeed for the time of year. Caroline sat down with us on the ground one day and we clambered all over her!
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Monday 22nd March It's Spring! March has been lovely so far. We have had some sunshine and plenty of rain which is great for slug hunting! On the first weekend of the month, we had visitors. Sally, Mick and Charlotte from Reading visited us for the first time. Click to see the fun we had with Charlotte! It has also been a busy month for the website. We have been hearing from people all over the world including Australia, Canada and the USA. You can read about the people we've helped on this page: Don't miss the link to Anie's Page. She is a rescued duck from Hawaii and is so cute her humans have created a webpage all about her! We also have a new page for International Ducklings. If you know a duckling who would like to be featured, do send us a photo. This month has also seen we ducklings lay our first eggs and survive a night outside. Visit the latest Duckling Antics page for details!
Marge Man (left) and Bruiser taking a moment to preen and rest!
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Wednesday 28th April It has been quite a month! On Easter weekend, we thought it was Christmas! David spent the day emptying years of compost from the heaps behind our rill and we were allowed to clamber all over the soil eating worms and slugs. That week the humans also sowed us a new lawn to replace the one we destroyed in the wet winter weather. At first, we thought it would be a fun place to play but they kept us right out of the way and then covered the whole area with wire and mesh to keep our beaks out. We will look forward to a grassy feast when the barrier is removed. On Beth's birthday, we had lots of visitors. Beth and Kate brought Kirsty, Danny and Anna to see us. We were very popular! Also, on Sunday the 18th Steve and Helen from Reading came to visit again. We always look forward to seeing them. April has also been a big month for mishaps! One night at bed time, Caroline realised Marge Man was missing. She finally found him under a huge shrub. That was only the start of it, though, as it took her quite some time to get him out. He was completely stuck in the tangle of ground level branches! Titchy continues to cause concern because of her habit of falling onto her back and being unable to right herself. Even though her loyal mate, Diddy, stays by her side for hours - even into the hours of darkness if bedtime is late - he doesn't think to give her a nudge to help her up! That job usually falls to Caroline who luckily keeps a very close eye on us. April the 25th is Caroline's birthday but that didn't stop me giving her a huge fright. In fact, she had been worried about me for a couple of days because I had been spending more and more time on my own and most of that sleeping! It turned out I was egg bound and, as this can kill a duck, Caroline and David came to my rescue. Click here to read the full story! Well, after all that drama, you'd think that the weekly human chores such as changing our straw and cleaning and refilling the ponds would pass without incident. Not this month! On one pond day, when Caroline had pulled the plug the night before, she came up the next morning to find a new resident. It was a little mouse accompanied by....a large raw sausage which it seemed to have dragged into the empty pond overnight. Crazy goings on indeed!
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Thursday 27th May Hello everyone! Sheldon here and I am back to my usual cheeky self now. After my egg bound crisis, it took me a month or so to feel really happy again. I got very scaredy and spent weeks hiding in the shrubbery during the day time. I was a bit broody for a while too but now I just lay my egg each day and let Caroline collect it from the run. Just when I was getting back to my old self, BQ decided to give Caroline a fright. One evening, David noticed she was blinking far more than normal and on investigating, they discovered she had damaged her eye. A couple of days later, it was looking worse so Liz and Caroline took her to the vet. Her eye was red and sore looking and the vet said she had torn her third eyelid. She was given antibiotic ointment to prevent infection, although she didn't seem very grateful twice a day when they caught her to administer it. A week or so later it is almost completely healed. What a relief! Of course, there is never a dull moment here and the latest problem involves Titchy who keeps getting egg bound and has so far laid three soft shelled eggs. I am sure she will manage a proper egg soon! We have had a glorious month of sunshine and I am having so much fun on the main patio down beside the house. Diddy has finally accepted me more and lets me hang out with him and Titchy. I have also had a few chats with Caroline. I made her day yesterday by chattering to her and letting her stroke me.
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June Hello everyone! June started with sunshine and Diddy and I helped Caroline and her Mum plant up the patio pots. We had a wonderful time eating all the slugs from the bottom of the pots as they emptied the bulbs and replaced them with summer flowering plants. Titchy finally laid her first proper (hard shelled) eggs this month. Soon, she was laying whole clutches of them. Her nests were the funniest any of us had ever seen though. The first was in a tiny indentation in the soil in the main border- not even hidden! Next, she tried using the oregano plant just outside the back door, but she gave this one away by hissing every time Caroline or David walked up the path next to her.
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July Hi there! What a ducky month! Caroline was busy this month with two new ducklings, Pip and Cheep. They stayed for a few weeks until it was time for them to go to their new home at a plant nursery. Meanwhile, outside, we girls were still laying eggs for the early part of the month. I had a particularly cute spot in a flower pot for a time! We also had lots of visitors this month. (Although I suspect that was due to the ducklings being available for cuddles indoors!) Beth came to stay one night and we saw Michaela, Lesley and Hannah Church and Becky Miles as well as many other human folk!
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Sunday 22nd August Summer! What summer? August has been wet, wet, wet! We don't mind the rain too much but it means Caroline can not get out to see us very much. Talking of Caroline, she is now expecting a baby. In fact, she is five months pregnant and has the beginnings of a bump! She can still change our straw beds but has given up pond duties. David, Martin and Chen are sharing that task! Diddy, Titchy and I started moulting in July and so by the end of August, we had a glossy new set of feathers but our colourings are not quite back yet as you can see from the photo above. We are happy to be back down on the main patio, though, after hiding away amongst the shrubbery as a defence mechanism whilst we had no flight feathers. Martin has been very busy in the house this summer but he also added a new drainage pipe to the ponds so that they will not flood the path when they empty.
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September Hello fans! It is that glorious time of year again when the leaves fall and we play with them on the ground - hunting out the little slugs that hide underneath. We are trying hard not to ruin the grass David sowed for us last Spring but, with plenty of rain, it is not easy! After a Summer spent with Titchy and Diddy, with the mating season over and the fighting hormones subsiding, we are now all back together again and it is fun to see the others - especially Marty!
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October Poor Titchy! This has been a heart rending month for Caroline who has been very worried about little Titchy who hurt her leg so badly she spent much of October dragging herself round on her belly! Rather than separate us again and confine Titchy to a very small area, Caroline and David decided just to keep us in Duck Garden all the time. You see, we would only have got into fights when reunited. Titchy was so determined to follow us all wherever we went, though, that is was worth keeping us in a smaller area. Titchy was so bad at times that she cried to be helped to bed when the others rushed down the path without her at night, and sometimes had to be lifted in and out of the ponds. Happily, after four weeks or so, she is now fully recovered!
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November The Freedom of the main garden! Don't we all look gorgeous with our sparkly new feather coats and bright feet? We are so happy to be back out down in the main garden, although we quite understood we needed to keep Titchy company in the smaller Duck Garden while her leg healed. With Caroline heavily pregnant now, the main ducky duties, of cleaning out our houses and refreshing our ponds, has fallen mostly to Chen, Caroline's mum, who has grown to love us as she spends more time with us.
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December Festive Greetings! I can hardly believe it is December already. It has been an eventful year and, with Baby Crocker due on December 29th, we are ending it with Caroline waddling almost as much as us! Let's hope the little one likes ducks... Our December days are filled with VERY loud quacking and much foraging in the damp flower beds. We are all getting along very well for the most part and I know Caroline loves seeing her eleven ducks together after months as two groups when we were squabbling earlier in the year. I hope you enjoy this month's picture of me (centre) between my mum, Beaky, and my dad, Waggle. That's it from me for this month. Remember, you can e-mail Caroline for my latest news anytime and I will be back next month to keep you informed! Happy Christmas! Bye for now, Sheldon x x x
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