At a party last Saturday evening we chance upon Paul, Carrie and Jack Morris of Jemima-the-duck-who-came-to-stay fame.
"How is the old bird?" we enquired.
"She's very well, really, but I'm glad you're here because I just wanted to ask" said Carrie slightly pensively "Is it possible that she could be pregnant????"
"What makes you think that?" said I "Surely you don't think our little drakes could possibly have behaved with anything less than the utmost propriety during her stay at the Rectoryreserve?"
"Anyway" I added "She seemed to prefer her own company most of the time......"
"Well she is behaving a little oddly" Carrie replied. "She's hidden about 5 eggs and we hardly ever see her. She just appears for a little while and then disappears into the undergrowth. I've tried looking for the eggs but can't find them anywhere so we wondered if she could be sitting on them and waiting for them to hatch?"
Now that is very strange behaviour for Jemima..... it even got me wondering, but then commonsense returned...............
"She''ll have a long wait then" I said, trying to keep a straight face as I explained some of the facts-of-ducks-life to Carrie and Paul; not least that without a drake around to fertilise the eggs it would be a miracle if ducklings one day appear......
Personally, I have two theories: (1) it's that pheasant friend of hers who's to blame...
or (2) it's just Jemima's way of piling on the pressure in order to get a real pond of her own...........
Only time will tell!!!!
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