Nature is a cruel mother. Dolores started out with 9 babies and we're down to 2, Tippy and Savage, with Savage limping badly. Princess was sent off to the vet's when she was only a week old as her leg had been badly bitten by a turtle. The vet fixed her up even taking her camping with her to keep an eye on her. She is living in the pond behind the vet's office. Bandit disappeared a week ago and we can only surmise that he/she was eaten by a hawk - just a guess. All the other babies have slowly disappeared and we lost Fred, the 'father', on Monday. There were feathers all over the deck and no sign of Fred since then. Another hawk? The other 'mother' duck, Vera Wang Nut (who started out with 13), has become road kill and, surprisingly, Dolores has adopted her 2 remaining ducklings as well.
But let me tell you, the remaining ducklings? Darned funny! They tap on the windows when they're hungry, they eat out of our hand (I know, I know, they're ruined for life), they jump for their food when we hold it above them, and Dolores catches food in mid-air when we toss it to her, rather like a dog. It's hilarious to see our ducks do tricks!
We're quite attached to our ducks and hoping the remaining make it to adulthood.
Tippy - a really really noisy quacker. We know it's him when he's coming around the building.
The "twins", Ben and Jerry who belonged to Vera Wang Nut. That's Dolores in the background.
Savage - because he's very agressive when he eats from our hands.
Aren't they getting big?
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