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January Happy New Year! As any of you who read my December diary will know, Caroline and David were expecting their first child to arrive at the end of the month. In fact, baby Jessica Amy Crocker arrived fifteen days early on 14th December. Mother and baby are doing well but haven't ventured out into the garden yet and so this month's picture was actually taken from the house. What's more, it was taken in December - on Christmas Day during the festive dinner actually. Caroline and family stopped their celebrations to watch us playing in the pitiful snowfall that you can see on the window above. The first month of 2005 was fairly uneventful for us ducks. David and Martin (known now as Daddy and Gramps) are sharing the job of letting us out in the mornings and Chen (Granny) changes our straw beds regularly.
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February Sunny, crisp days! Here I am (front left) alongside the rill in Duck Garden with the other ten ducks. We enjoy it here with the warm bark path to sleep on. Can you see what a mess we are making of the grass already? (Regular readers will remember how David sowed fresh grass here for us last Spring.) Unbelievably, the first ducky egg was laid this month. The winter sunshine has made us think Spring has come early. We are not all laying yet, though, but it won't be long before our humans have to start their "hunt the broody duck" game at bedtime. Those of you wondering about Baby Crocker should click here to see her!
PS. My February challenge to you is "Spot the duck". All eleven of us feature in this shot but can you find us all?
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March A laugh and a panic! Two incidents stand out from March in Duck Land. The first had yours truly as its heroine. Chen looked out of the window one afternoon to see me on top of the hedge by Tolly cat's shed. Yes, taking advantage of Caroline and David's tardiness is clipping our wings (they are so busy with baby Jess! ) , I had flown up into the air and surprised myself by landing on the hedge! The second notable event was when Titchy became stranded on her back. It happened one VERY wet day when our humans forgot to put us to bed at a sensible hour. David came to put us into our houses at about 10 pm and Titchy was missing. He returned with a torch and their tipsy friend, Sue, who was staying with them and hunted for her. It turned out that Titchy had fallen onto her back (as she does from time to time) and was unable to right herself. The trouble was, with the very wet weather and the fact she was in a muddy patch, she was totally drenched and her feathers were thick with mud. They took her to the house where she had TWO warm baths in the kitchen and then spent the night in a cat basket in the porch before being reunited with the rest of us after a hearty breakfast!
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April It's silly season again! Mating season is well and truly here and we are no longer all friends. In fact, I must admit I have shown a rather vicious streak myself of late. You see, there is a love triangle between myself, Diddy and Titchy. I am very fond of Diddy but he prefers Titchy and I have been rather cruel and taken it out on her. A few pecks here and a chase there, but Caroline is unimpressed by my behaviour. In addition, I have been subject to attack by the other drakes so Caroline and David spent a while trying to figure out where we could all spend our days without anyone suffering major injury! In the end, they plumped for a three-way split. I spend my days and nights with our ducky parents in Duck Garden. D, BQ, Marge, Bruiser and Marty hang out in the main garden in the day and the big duck house at night and Diddy and Titch sleep in a cat basket in the garage at night, and spend the day in a run down by the house. It is an awful lot of work for our humans. Ducks, who'd have 'em! By the end of April, there was another problem. Titchy was egg bound again and had to have two warm baths. Caroline and David did the first late one night and the second was given by Chendy as you can see from the picture below. (How far she has come from her days of not liking us as ducklings to holding a poorly duck for its bath!) I had to have a warm bath, too, but recovered quickly after laying just one soft shelled egg. I hope you enjoy the photo of baby Jess (above). Unbelievably, Caroline didn't take a single photo of me this month!
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May Lucky Duckies! Hello again. I have now settled in well to life in the top Duck Garden with my parents (after being isolated from Diddy and Titch due to my bullying tendencies.) We are being well looked after, as usual, by David who does the daily chores, Martin who comes every Friday to clean our ponds and Chen who is in charge of changing our straw beds each week. Occasionally, we even see Caroline and Jess! One day, they spent some time up here and, when Aunty Liz popped round, baby Jess had her first ever fit of giggles right here in Duck Garden. Pictured (above) this month are Marty, Bruiser, Marge Man and little D!
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June In the Brownies...
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Well, June already and we girls are still laying lots of eggs. We take great delight in finding new spots for nests and making our humans play "Hunt the Duck". Twice, Caroline has been woken at 5 am by ducks who, having spent the night on a nest, have decided that when the sun comes up, it is time to quack VERY loudly and find their ducky friends (who, of course, are tucked up in their beds!) Another naughty moment was when the main garden ducks found that the gate onto the drive had been left open. Of course, it was too tempting an opportunity to miss and they ventured through it. Luckily, they found a flower bed of tasty slugs and grubs and were discovered before heading out onto the road! The highlight of the month for me was a visit to the 1st Oreston Brownies with Caroline and David. We were guest speakers and gave a talk on ducks! (See me pictured above with my Brownie cap. Well, one I borrowed!) I was the surprise finale so I spent most of the night in the store room, but I enjoyed meeting the Brownies and behaved myself while they stroked me.
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July Feathers everywhere! We started our moult this month as you can see from the photo above (where my beautifully coloured wing feathers are missing) and, of course, that meant our hormones settled down, too, and Diddy and Titch could be freed from their hutch on the patio. This month, Caroline has been exchanging e-mails with a wonderful lady in Leicestershire. Helene has runner ducks and her online diary is a delight. The photographs of her ducks and beautiful garden are fitting illustrations to her words. We wholeheartedly recommend the site. You can visit it here:
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August Summer swims! We had a lovely summer. We like nothing better than a swim in a clean pond in the sunshine followed by a nice, long preen and a warm sleep! One week, David and Caroline took baby Jessica (seen above in a ducky shower cap!) to Reading to visit old friends and neighbours and Martin very kindly came t0 stay to look after us all.
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September Welcome to England! The MOST amazing thing happened this month. Nancy, whose duck, Mallory, has her own pages on this site, came to visit us from California, USA. Nancy first contacted Caroline to find out how to clip Mallory's wings two years ago and they have been firm friends ever since. Nancy spent lots of time with us. She let us out and put us to bed most days and even helped Caroline clip our wings! We do hope she'll be back to see us next year. One afternoon, Nancy, Caroline and Jess brought a rug up to Duck Garden and spent some time with us. We waddled over and joined them on the edge of the blanket. Baby Jess had never seen us at such close quarters before and couldn't resist trying to stroke us. Click here to see Jess getting to know us ducks! On a less cheerful note, Caroline's friend, Isobel, who also suffers from ME and has been a tremendous support to her (and at times a good friend to us - for example when she helped Caroline put ointment in BQ's eye!) has moved back to her native Scotland to live. We will miss her terribly, but wish her and her family every happiness in their new home!
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October Baby love! There is great excitement in the Crocker household (well, from Caroline anyway) because baby Jess is trying to say duck. It usually comes out as "d" or "uck" but she is definitely more and more interested in us and, on days when Caroline hasn't the energy to bring Jessica out to see us, we see our baby girl standing in the window (with mummy's help) bouncing up and down excitedly and "talking" about us! She even likes to watch us on the patio when she is sitting in her highchair in the breakfast room. See how excited Jess gets when she sees her ducks. If you thought ducks didn't think twice about Halloween, think again and visit Helene's runners and their pumpkins ! PS. Don't I look gorgeous in the photo above with my new feathers!
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November Fireworks and a flurry of snow The month started well as we had a visit from little Jessica, her Gramps and Caroline. Actually, little Jess is more interested in the hen for some reason, but we like to see them all anyway. Soon after, it was Bonfire Night with the inevitable loud fireworks, but we were tucked up in our houses. Half way through November, Beth came to stay for the night and had a great time doing ducky chores. It is always good to see her. We had a little coating of snow on the 25th. A bit chilly and not very good for foraging but we survived with some warming loud quacks.
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December Birthday girl! Little Jess was one on the 14th. She received lots of wonderful presents - including several ducks. Look how she is treating the wooden one in the photo above. I hope she is gentler with us when she starts walking! She knows exactly who we are, though, and can "sign" duck really well now as she did to us out of the window on the 6th.
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