These two appeared last week to nest somewhere near the wide ditch opposite the house, could well be the same pair as last spring who hatched 6 eggs but then ended up a few weeks later with no ducklings. Ducks are such hopeless mothers, they either lose the ducklings when they take them off for long walks or the ducklings get killed by the moorhens who reside here all year round...cruel things.
 |
| Sitting and waiting for the sparrows to drop bits from the feeders above |
All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all.
Ducks’ tails, drake’s tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight,
Busy in the river!
Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim--
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.
Everyone for what he likes!
We like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!
High in the blue above
Swifts whirl and call--
We are down a-dabbling,
Up tails all.
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all.
Ducks’ tails, drake’s tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight,
Busy in the river!
Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim--
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.
Everyone for what he likes!
We like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!
High in the blue above
Swifts whirl and call--
We are down a-dabbling,
Up tails all.
From The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame .
I'm miffed that Blogger has changed the way dates are written on the dashboard posts page.....from the English way.....Day/Month/Year to the USA way ....Month/Day/Year. I have to look twice to work it out! Seems Blogger likes to change things for no reason.
Thanks for yesterdays comments. I now have blog plans for a few more days and welcome to more followers, hope you enjoy reading.
I'm miffed that Blogger has changed the way dates are written on the dashboard posts page.....from the English way.....Day/Month/Year to the USA way ....Month/Day/Year. I have to look twice to work it out! Seems Blogger likes to change things for no reason.
Thanks for yesterdays comments. I now have blog plans for a few more days and welcome to more followers, hope you enjoy reading.
Back Tomorrow
Sue
My dashboard posts page is still English style (DMY). Maybe yours will revert?!
ReplyDeleteHow fun to have some Mallards visiting your garden! We've never had any stop here and we even have a little pond they can float in for a bit. As long as they wouldn't eat our little koi fish! ((hugs)), Teresa :-)
ReplyDeleteWe had Shelducks in the field behind us last week, we see lots of birds in the field but rarely ducks. I'd read somewhere that Moorhens attack ducklings....so it's true then?
ReplyDeleteMy daughter used to work at a wildlife hospital and she would say ducks are the worst mothers. Love that poem from Wind In The Willows, I always used to say it to my children when we would feed the ducks. Jane xx
ReplyDeleteWe've had them sitting in the field at the back of our house as the fields are so water logged at the moment. They don't stay too long though. They use it like a pit stop en route to somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteMitzi
Apologies that this so so long but I love it.
ReplyDeleteJ x
From troubles of the world
I turn to ducks,
Beautiful comical things
Sleeping or curled
Their heads beneath white wings
By water cool,
Or finding curious things
To eat in various mucks
Beneath the pool,
Tails uppermost, or waddling
Sailor-like on the shores
Of ponds, or paddling
– Left! Right! – with fanlike feet
Which are for steady oars
When they (white galleys) float
Each bird a boat
Rippling at will the sweet
Wide waterway…
When night is fallen you creep
Upstairs, but drakes and dillies
Nest with pale water-stars,
Moonbeams and shadow bars,
And water-lilies:
Fearful too much to sleep
Since they’ve no locks
To click against the teeth
Of weasel and fox.
And warm beneath
Are eggs of cloudy green
Whence hungry rats and lean
Would stealthily suck
New life, but for the mien
The bold ferocious mien
Of the mother-duck.
Yes, ducks are valiant things
On nests of twigs and straws,
And ducks are soothy things
And lovely on the lake
When that the sunlight draws
Thereon their pictures dim
In colours cool.
And when beneath the pool
They dabble, and when they swim
And make their rippling rings,
0 ducks are beautiful things!
But ducks are comical things:-
As comical as you.
Quack!
They waddle round, they do.
They eat all sorts of things,
And then they quack.
By barn and stable and stack
They wander at their will,
But if you go too near
They look at you through black
Small topaz-tinted eyes
And wish you ill.
Triangular and clear
They leave their curious track
In mud at the water’s edge,
And there amid the sedge
And slime they gobble and peer
Saying ‘Quack! quack!’
When God had finished the stars and whirl of coloured suns
He turned His mind from big things to fashion little ones;
Beautiful tiny things (like daisies) He made, and then
He made the comical ones in case the minds of men
Should stiffen and become
Dull, humourless and glum,
And so forgetful of their Maker be
As to take even themselves – quite seriously.
Caterpillars and cats are lively and excellent puns:
All God’s jokes are good – even the practical ones!
And as for the duck, 1 think God must have smiled a bit
Seeing those bright eyes blink on the day He fashioned it.
And he’s probably laughing still at the sound that came
out of its bill!
Ducks (1919)
F.W. Harvey
Lovely to see the ducks in your garden! I wish! The birds I have waiting for food to fall under the bird feeder are Mourning Doves. They are so funny to watch.
ReplyDeleteI've got a magpie and pigeons tidying up below the feeder after the starlings lob the meal worms all over the place!
ReplyDeleteArilx
The colouring of Mallards is so vivid. Well at least the males. I hope Mom watches her babies a bit better this this time around.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Let's hope for a more successful hatching and rearing season this year x
ReplyDelete