OneGuyFromBarlick

First view of ducklings this year.

This mum has three...

But this mum has 11!

11, wow I bet the above Mum feels relieved. Beautiful shots.

There doesn't look to be many females on the canal; a nearby resident told me that one had five drakes chasing after her in the garden.

We had ducks and moor hens on the dam at Bancroft and the weavers fed them like pets. George Bleasdale shot two one day for the pot, very close to a lynching party! When we drained the dam there were always duck eggs laid on the bottom.

My domestic duck only started to lay again 5 days ago. Your wild duck must have started laying at the beginning of March or even before that. It takes 28 days of sitting to hatch the eggs, and she wont sit until she has laid a worthwhile clutch of up to 15 eggs. I suppose they make an early start just in case they need time to raise another brood.

On my walk today I stopped at our local duck pond, I love the way a few ducks get together and take themselves off for a walk around the suburban streets. It's easy to see how far they go, haha. Interesting that they don't seem to go onto people's driveways.

We had about twenty Muscovy ducks at Hey Farm and of course they could fly. They used to go off each morning and at least one of their stopping places was on the roof of Monk House. They always came home at sunset.

Ugly ones. In the reeds by Moss Shed.

Bill Amos, the editor of Lancashire Life once told me to send him any pics I liked but not pics of ducks in the park!

Eight cygnets on one of the Conway Crescent gardens.

A new family on the canal the other day.

Aaaaaah! In our local town I go to an old establishment when I want new tyres for the car, located in a big old style shed down the end of a street and next to a stream. While your tyres get changed you can watch the ducks paddling in the stream and wandering about among parked cars. If you come when the tyre shop opens in the morning you get to see them feeding the ducks. The ducks like also to have a dip in the old bath of water where they check your tyres for slow leaks. The tyres are a good price and the service is excellent too! What more could you want?

Nothing looks funnier than a gosling chick and they tell me that they bond with the first animate object they see when they hatch...

Still not come across a parrot for Stanley; hope one isn't needed.

Here are some growing goslings in the fields below Greenberfield Locks.

Big handsome birds and I love to see them flying over the town...

Seen today. A big white duckling? Well it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, so it must be a duck?