Protier: a mallard duck breeds on our garden pond

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March 11, 2016

A mallard duck breeds on our garden pond

May 30, 2015 Today the ducklings are not to be seen with their mom, maybe is this Weather too bad. We carefully search the area. The nest is empty, by the way, all the eggs are hatched. Now we are restless – if the duck and his cubs hid in another place, they left?

They also like the bird feed very well

The only one who is dissatisfied with the situation is our Robinson. He is prohibited from gardening during the day because he would love to hunt our guests.
In the meantime (March 26th, 16th) Robi has got used to the ducks and only watches how they swim on the pond and the two don’t fear him anymore.

How will it go on?

At the beginning of Holy Week (around March 20th) it is striking that the drake comes alone to our garden pond in the morning, the duck lady comes one to two hours later. Where did she go? After a while we discovered it. On the little reed island, where she brood last year, there was a small cave just big enough for a duck to sit in. She probably puts her egg in here in the morning, then covers it carefully, and then joins her duck man again.

In the past few days, they have mostly been flown to separately in the morning. He immediately lands on the pond, on the bank of which he finds his food, she sits on her nest for 1-2 hours.

The duck mom left her drake alone all morning until it got too boring and he flew away again. At around 2 p.m. she leaves her nest without covering the eggs with leaves and reeds – actually unusual – she always protects her eggs very carefully, then she flies to her other pond to feed them vigorously. A good opportunity to see and count the eggs. There are now 8 pieces, 4 more will be added in the next few days.
And now she broods undaunted, day and night, in the morning around 6 a.m. she comes to her feeding place for a few minutes and also bathes extensively.

On April 28th the first ducklings hatch. By the next morning there will be 12. Everyone did it. They are lively, go foraging immediately (we also feed duck rearing feed), but they also learn to catch insects very quickly. They jump out of the water onto the reed bed when they discover something good. And the mom looks very closely at the lively crowd.

The duck mom makes sure that everyone stays together, the very enterprising chicks are already swimming between the lily pads. All 12 ducklings are still there.

How long will they stay on our pond and in our meadow???

As you can see, on May 6th the duck mother and her children set off for a larger body of water. It was as secret as it was last year. We hope, all are arrived alive and well at a pond or at the Aisch. Last year they all migrated together about 24-30 hours after the last duckling hatched. This year when they started their big march they were already 9 days old and well fed. That certainly helped them to achieve their goal happily.

In the meantime we have learned a lot about the duck migration. The duck mother was seen with her children in some surrounding gardens. During her hike, she had the same problem, e.g. B. also have hedgehogs who want to move from one garden to another: the walls are too high, there is no passage. The last picture, which shows the family together, was taken two parallel streets on the Buchberg in Neustadt.

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Christina Cherry
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