Summer Duckling Report

Lots of of our visitors want to know what happens to the ducklings and/or eggs they see when they visit so here's an update.

Easter Eggs
Of the Easter ducklings we have one female, deep dark greeny black called Saffy, and two males.  Sir Francis Drake, the dark green male, and Grey Drake are beginning to challenge big Old Man Specs for his position as Top Duck.

The Heron Three
Of the seven ducklings that hatched on the wall by Mill Cottage in June we have three teenagers.  Sadly, we lost three to a hungry heron, and Polo, the duck with the web with the hole, didn't recover from the attack. The Heron Three are fit and healthy with adult plumage, two grey and one dark green and black, and are beginning to take flying lessons.


Violet's Nine

Violet hatched nine ducklings and we stood in awe as some of them pecked from inside their eggs and blinked damply at the world.  They are fit, strong and healthy and we hope to breed more from them as they grow.  Their father was Alice, who turned out not to be a girl, tho he has since lost an encounter with a fox and is no more.

 

The Two-Mum Duo
Grey Duck hasn't really ever got it.  She abandoned her twelve eggs to play aunty and foster mum to Mrs Duckel's Easter three, going swimming with them and baby-sitting.  This time, she's hatched two ducklings and is playing aunty again - White Duck has abandoned her eggs and taken over as mother.  The cutest soft brown duckling is hers. 

July 2010 The Eden Project Big Lunch at Watermill Cottages

A perfect summer's day for The Big Lunch - food to share, a bbq, a cask of local beer, homemade elderflower cordial, and lazing on the lawn.  And of course our Eco Raft Race - a mini raft made from material in the woods and hedges and then raced down the stream, under the bridge to the finishing rock by the lawn, where the dogs skewed the result by dog-napping various vessels.

This year categories included: Titanic (the first to sink), Junior and Senior Champs, and the prettiest raft.

pre-race raft display