White Duck and Bumble bees

With one exception, all the ducks on the Rectoryreserve are Call ducks. These are direct descendents of the wild Mallard and are thought to have originated in Holland where they are still known as Decoy ducks. They were originally used to entice wild ducks to enter large funnel traps. Later hunters tethered them close to gunning stations to lure wild ducks within shooting range. It was probably the only breed in history selected for its voice, which is uniquely high pitched and carries over long distances (which made them invaluable to hunters); they talk fast and furiously, the hens often all at once, as if laughing and chuckling at some shared joke. Nowadays they are bred mainly for decoration and show; on the Rectoryreserve they provide hours of distraction, amusement and entertainment as they busy themseves bustling hither and thither with great vim and vigour, usually making the most tremendous racket - needless to say, we see very few wild ducks around here.


However, the White Duck is an exception - to most rules of nature. She is an Aylesbury cross Pekin and was bred (as are many thousands each year) to grace the dinner table. Bred for meat and flavour, she is four or five times the size of the little Calls and, rather than 'chatter' she makes large, insistent honking quacks. That she is with us is a bit of a miracle. Her kinsfolk live only for 7 weeks before they are collected from their sheds in the early hours of the morning and taken away to be prepared for their culinary destiny. White duck, along with two males, managed to escape being caught. We re-homed them all (by coincidence the man who made our Chicken Shack worked at the farm where these ducks were reared and he was 'keeping an eye' on the escapees when we met him to collect the Shack, so we agreed to take them off his hands). Unfortunately, the male ducks died within a few months, but White Duck is now 3 or 4 years old. Bred to have a large breast and plenty of meat on her, at first she could only waddle a short distance quite slowly. Certainly, had she tried to swim in those early days she would have sunk under her own weight. Just as well we only had a large puddle at the time. Over the next year she gradually got fitter and more active and, to our great surprise, started laying eggs; she lays one very large white egg almost every day. The hens seem to consider her a superior species - if they spot the eggs before we do, they destroy them.
Unlike the Call ducks, she always comes for titbits and competes very successfully with all the chickens. Rather than look at the ground to see what's fallen, she looks up at me to see what's coming and if its pasta or bread everyone else had better get out of her way!

What's the connection with the Bumble Bee? Well, bumble bees are not ergonomically designed to fly; their body weight is far to great for their wing size. They are an engineering miracle and should really be permanently grounded. Yet they don't know this and so they fly. White duck was never meant to have a normal life. But she doesn't know that. She's strong and happy and thriving - and swims as well as any duck in the new pond!

On the subject of keeping clean - the new pond

There are times when you wonder if all the effort you put in for the animals is really appreciated.

When we started out with ducks we only had 4 so needed only a small pond. Gradually the number increased to 16 and the pond turned into a large puddle and life on the 'puddle' was just a wee bit crowded. Then came the pigs - who live uphill of the poultry - and the rainwater flowed downhill from their territory into the duck puddle and it all got a bit messy.

So last weekend we decided it was time for a little re-organisation. In came the digger, out came the little pond and up came the puddle. Leaving a glorious 14' by 12' hole which was two foot deep - the foundation of a wonderful new pond. A while ago we'd 'inherited' an old carpet from a local Public House, so we used that as the basis and laid a butyl rubber sheet over it which overlapped the sides. The sides are reinforced with bricks reclaimed from some old building we knocked down a few years ago and two of the sides - as you can see in the photo - are reinforced with roof tiles - also reclaimed from the old building. We try to recycle as much material as possible on the Rectoryreserve (though there are a couple of huge old wooden carriage house doors that I have no idea what to do with) so it was a great pleasure only to have to buy in the butyl liner.

With the pond ready, we rejigged the fencing to create a slightly different pen enabling us to leave a run-way between the pigs and the poultry - all far more manageable than before. And then, with great expectation and eager anticipation - on our part - we opened the new pen and pond up to the poultry.

Naturally, I expected the ducks - who had been restricted to a washing-up bowl and a plant water tray for the whole of the previous week - to waddle speedily and eagerly over to the new pond. But did they? Of course not. Scary thing, the new pond. They totally ignored it. It stayed pristine and empty for the best part of an hour before the bravest of the bunch - White Duck - finally made her way over. And then went away again.

A little while later she returned. Stood gingerly on the edge. Looked sideways into the water. Stuck her head down nervously. Then she washed her beak; then she dipped a toe in; then she had a drink - and then she washed her beak; then she dipped a toe in; then she called her mates who, as you can see, decided to stick to the safety of the water tray! So, probably in disgust, she slid in and glided gracefully around the perimeter - and then there was the most almighty display of splashing and dipping ever given by a solitary bird! For a duck who was bred never to swim (more of which next time) she had a whale of a time, ducking and diving under water and splashing for all she was worth. And STILL the others didn't join her --- until a good half hour later, when one by one they nervously and hesitantly slipped over the edge. And then all hell was let loose as they all tried to outdo each other. About 10 minutes of that and out they staggered, clearly exhausted because for much of the rest of the day they were fast asleep in the shade with their beaks tucked under their wings!

We didn't see them in the pond for the rest of the day and the next morning, instead of rushing out of the poultry palace and straight into the pond - as they always did with the 'puddle' - they ignored it again for several hours. Then the temptation was too much - and anyway, the washing up bowl they'd happily queued for the previous few days had been removed - and one by one they gingerly returned and repeated their delighted ducking and diving antics -- so maybe they do appreciate if after all!

Never knowingly into mud

Just about the only chap on the Rectoryreserve who is never knowingly into mud is Cat - or Puddycat as she is officially known. Here you see Gunner chasing after her - a current pre-occupation since he cannot quite work out the purpose of cats. She is gradually getting him trained though; a series of withering looks - like this one which clearly says "get off my tail, mut" - and a few sharp decisive taps about the inquisitive nose with a paw - will soon put him in his proper place (several rungs below cat on the ladder of life). Back to the mud though - have you ever seen a dirty cat; how is it, eveything and everybody else around here gets muddy or slightly dirty much of the time and Cat remains utterly spotfree? Part of the answer clearly lies in her chief past-time - as in the second picture - no amount of preening will satisfy her but eventually food does call and she breaks off to go satisfy the hungry tum.

Cat was not always known as Puddycat. She started out in life as Harpo and, together with her brother, Chico, came here as a yard cat to keep down the unwanted wildlife population.... The following spring Chico, always the bolder of the two, went off wandering and, unfortunately, was never seen again. A month or two later, Harpo, always the follower, also disappeared, never to be seen again. That is, until some 3 months later when the photo we'd put up in the local vet's surgery was seen by the lady from the Cats Protection League - whom I'd coincidentally only spoken to about taking a couple of feral kittens a couple of days earlier. She rang to say somebody on the other side of town had reported a lost cat, which looked identical, wandering around their house over the past few days. Eventually, as the guys who'd 'found' the cat didn't really want us to re-find it, we drove down to see the cat and - yes - it did look identical to Harpo. Having not seen us for several months, he was a bit nervous of us but we did manage to catch him and, almost to tears from the other guys, we drove home with him. He remained nervous and anxious about going outside but we put that down to his traumatic experiences over the past few months. We did wonder that he had learned to use a litter tray in his absence - something we only 'learned' after he repeatedly did his 'business' in our downstairs loo! Several other habits, like sitting on newspaper, also made us wonder who had looked after him in the time he was away from home. Imagine our horror too when, about a month later, we noticed that he had been castrated in his absence! Several months elapsed and Harpo gradually settled down and became excessively fond of sitting on heads and shoulders and then it was time for his annual trip to the vet. Mentioning the story of his disappearance and lucky re-finding to the vet I also brought up the matter of his castration. Whereupon the vet examined cat in rather more detail and - yes - declared him to be a her! I was dumbstruck. Not Harpo at all. We had unwittingly re-homed someone else's much loved cat!!! I queried whether I should advertise the fact to find 'her' proper owner but the vet's attitude was that since cat had clearly settled down it would cause more trauma and disruption so "best to leave well alone".

Hence, Harpo became Puddycat, or, more familiarly, Cat and has lived happily ever since - particularly after training us all to her ways and needs!

Mud, glorious mud

Weatherwise, June was one hell of a month. Amazingly, it was not the wettest on record. That was set in June 1860 when 157mm (6.2 in) of water fell. It was even worse if you happened to be living in Cherrapunji, in a remote part of north east India; between August 1860 and July 1861 86.83 feet of rain fell (26.47m). During the same period, the south west of America was struck by a drought more savage than the renowned Dust bowl years of the 1930s.

Anyway, back to the present and the reality of rain on the Rectoryreserve: we are very fortunate in being up on 'the Wolds' so any serious rain water courses down our drive, past the house, round the yard and straight on down the hill to the pond at the bottom, from which any excess overflows into the river tributary which joins the main river stream, which eventually flows down through the most local town - which did experience quite a bit of flooding. Before we built what everyone thinks are diagonal speed humps (but they are actually water buffers) on our drive, quite a bit of storm water used to just take the most direct downward route via the front of the house. Now, the humps deflect the worst of it off to the sides of the drive and into the verges.

Nonetheless, the rain still made an impression; most notably in the pigs' territory. In the picture above on the right you can see Mangel and Wurzel inspecting the boundaries of their domain when they first moved from the stalls to the outside world. Quite clean and tidy really. In the other picture you can see Ginger and Pepper wading through the same pen, now transformed into something resembling the field at Glastonbury. See the third picture! It was absolute hell for us to wade through in our wellies to retrieve their feed bowls or replenish the straw in and around their arks, but they absolutely loved it. Many years ago, when nobody had a care about recycling, the copse the pigs are in was used for dumping rubbish. So, the rain has enabled them to really rootle down into the mud and retrieve all manner of bottles, pans and sundry bits of metal! It's quite a sight to see a pig with several inches of thick, gloopy mud- with bits of rubbish stuck in it - on the end of his nose! They have never had so much fun - and we have so far filled half a dozen old plastic feed sacks with the rubbish they have dug up!

And still they keep coming

Having just got used to the idea of Dolly pitter-pattering around with her little tribe I thought I must be seeing double when, a couple of hours later, I turned round and saw yet another duck with a tribe of minis following.... This time it was Molly proudly showing her brood of 10 the direct route through the stables to the outside world. She had made her nest in some hay on the floor of the barn so at least her ducklings had not had to absail down the side of some bales before seeing the outside world. Still pretty scary though if you're only a couple of inches high and you're expected to follow mum into the big outside.... In no time at all though all were happily trotting to and fro, through the flower beds, around the Poultry Palace, up to the pigs and back round the barn into the hay for a short snooze - before repeating the whole process all over again. It all got a bit confusing when Dolly and her 12 met Molly and her 10 for a quick gossip around the water bowls - ducklings going hither and thither and all looking much the same. Then it was time to follow mum off on another adventure - and three of Molly's accidentally went with Dolly. It was not too many yards before she noticed and, telling her 12 to keep still, chaperoned them back to Molly! Later on, one of Molly's followed Dolly and this time it got a bit of a bop on the back with a beak and told to go away in no uncertain manner. They certainly have to grow up quickly.... survival of the fittest again. By nightfall though all were safely tucked under their right mums...

Ducklings - what ducklings?

It's amazing that within a couple of days of hatching, ducklings are expected to make their way around the territory without hesitation or pause. Dolly's brood were in and out of the pond then back to the Poultry Palace for a brief snooze before being chaperoned off again round the stable yard, through the barns, up to the midden and past the piggies and then back to the Poultry Palace via the flower bed and water bowls (for Dolly's bath). And it's not even lunch time yet!

The second picture shows them (?) all fast asleep under Dolly in the straw. Incredible that 12 ducklings can fit so neatly under her tummy and wings - although she does look just a little bit 'fatter' than normal!

Dolly's Dozen

The RectoryReserve wildlife seems totally undeterred by all the rain we are having this summer. In fact, if the ducks are anything to go by, it would appear to be having a very positive effect. Dolly displayed her brood for the first time yesterday - and what a brood! In the 5 years since we started keeping ducks, this is the largest clutch to have hatched. Clever Dolly. All the more so because she built her nest on the fourth bale level amongst the hay in the barn. Not only did she have to keep going up and down herself for the 4 weeks of incubation (ducklings take a week longer than chicks to hatch) but the 12 ducklings had to negotiate their way down from the hay in order to follow her to the pond. That's about 100yds away using the circuitous route they had to follow to get out of the barn after the horses had been turned out in their field for the day. No mean feat considering they were probably only two or three days old at the time and had never been out of the nest. In fact, the first we knew of them was when I went into the Poultry Palace to collect the chicken eggs yesterday morning and saw what I thought was a very fat duck - or maybe even two - sitting in the midst of the straw. As I opened the door to go in, Dolly rose up in stately fashion displaying a mass of tiny heads and bodies hidden beneath her. I couldn't understand where they had suddenly appeared from since I'd seen and heard nothing in the haybarn the previous day! I thought it must have been a broody duck I'd inadvertantly missed seeing in the Poultry Palace. It was only when I went to check her nest in the hay that it dawned on me exactly what Dolly had achieved.

We now have to keep our fingers crossed and hope as many as possible survive. Ducklings have a very high mortality rate, which I don't really understand, but I think has something to do with the fact that in the first week or two they are quite unstable and if they fall over on their backs they don't have enough strength in their wings to 'flip' themselves over again. It's very sad. But I suppose it's nature's way of making sure the strongest survive.