When my fiancée and I bought this house we didn’t expect to expand our property from the just under three acres that came with the house to the now just under 11 acres we now own. As we expanded our property we also expanded our ‘pets’. One acre of our property is a pond so last Spring my husband added 6 Ancona ducks to our household. They arrived in the mail from Missouri last March just a few days old and completely helpless and equally cute. He doted on them while they grew and slaved away trying various methods of keeping their water clean and the rest of their pen dry.
We learned they love peas. Just plain old green peas. They would eagerly gobble them up out of our hands. They also loved meal worms and baths. Like a duck to water is a real thing. They were so small that their first swim was in a tote and they took turns diving under the water and beneath their siblings. They dunked and dunked and dunked their heads.
But ducklings grow incredibly fast, almost in front of your eyes. Pretty soon Joe was busy sketching out a duck house and finally building it over several weeks. I watched and worried that after all his efforts they wouldn’t use it. From what I read ducks may or may not go into a house at night and most often might doze on the water. Joe persevered on. He was not leaving his babies outside unprotected at night. He built a sturdy house with a slanted roof with a center section that lifted up and a back door that swung out for easy cleaning. He added an automatic door with a remote button. He installed one window on each side that opened for airflow and put hardware cloth on the inside. A third long window was placed on the front of the house next to the duck door so that the ducks could look out at what we were sure would become their beloved, the pond.
Finally it was time for the girls to move outside. We put them into their new home with the door shut one evening and there they spent their first night outside. The next morning we took our coffee down to the pond like we do on nice mornings and Joe opened the duck door and we sat back expecting them to come tumbling out eager and excited about their new start on life.
We sat and we drank our coffee and waited. And waited. Joe got up and checked on them and reported back that they were huddled in the back of the house. We continued to wait. After a bit more waiting Joe opened the back door to the duck house and encouraged them out the duck door. They came tumbling out one at a time. Unsure how to use the ramp they spilled off the sides and slipped and slid down the ramp. And so it began.
All six stuck close together and where one went they all went. Some times quacking or grousing but always together. They didn’t venture far at first and they didn’t go near that pond. At night we’d go out and chase them down and use various methods to try and train them to go into their house. We tried baby gates to guide them up the ramp as they didn’t seem to understand the concept of a ramp. They’d try to jump from the ground at the side of the ramp into the house. Needless to say that didn’t work well. Sometimes we’d just grab them and throw them in the house. We tried luring them in with meal worms. Meal worms would eventually be the ticket to getting the ducks into their house every night.
They didn’t seem interested in the pond. We got impatient and put them in the pond convinced they just didn’t know it was water. They acted like we set them on fire and quacked and flapped their way out. They had no example to follow and so were figuring everything out on their own and on their own schedule.
After a few months and a few adjustments they figured out how to use the ramp. Or maybe they finally got strong enough to walk up it after living the first two months of their lives in a small pen. They also began to enjoy their pond but they stuck to the edge and didn’t stray far for weeks. And they always went everywhere together.
They were innocent and fun to watch. They seemed to welcome all creatures and were curious about everything. Wild ducks and herons would visit and they would totter over to them and we’d create conversations for them “Are you our Mother?” “These people keep grabbing us and shoving us in that square box.” “We like peas. Do you have any peas?” If there was a duck in the pond they’d paddle out to it and then proceed to follow it around the pond as if their lives depended on it. “We need to stick together! Hey where are you going?” They’d go streaking past in hot pursuit of that wild duck. To our alarm we looked out the window one day to see they had made a circle around a snapping turtle with a shell at least 18 inches across and were standing there staring at it. “Are you our mother?” I couldn’t stand it and went out and chased them away and Joe grabbed a tote and put the turtle in the tote and we relocated it to a pond down the road. It was a futile effort though because there were many more.
A Mama Mallard with three babies hung around for several weeks. Mama didn’t like the Ancona’s going near her babies but they didn’t stop trying. They would follow the Mama and babies around and when Mama was teaching the babies to fly the Anconca’s flapped their wings too. I swear they looked at their own wings flapping, confused that they were not lifting off the ground like the Mallards.
Joe had decided the ducks would all have names that began with D. Desiree, Daphne, Daisy, Dottie, Doris, Debbie were christened. It was nice that we could tell them apart thanks to the unique markings they each had.
Then we started losing them. One day in the Fall we came home to five ducks. Since they always stuck together we knew something bad had happened. We split up and combed the area around the pond for the missing duck. Joe found Daphne on the other side of the pond and she scuttled her way into the pond. We meet back at the side of the pond by our house and Joe pulls out the kayak and tells me to get in. I say why me? I’m not a water person and that pond was not something I wanted to fall into. He holds up his arm with the cast on it. He’d broken his wrist building the new run for my chickens. So I get into the kayak paddle out to Daphne and she let’s me pick her up and put her into the kayak. I paddle back. I feel heroic.
We take her in and examine her and part of a foot is missing and her body looks distended and swollen. We assume that Daphne was the unlucky victim of a snapping turtle and that she put up a really impressive fight. We clean her up and put her in a crate inside. I convince Joe that she should go to the vets. So the next day he takes her in a cat carrier and I meet him at the vets. When we get into the examining room and Joe opens the crate, Daphne is dead. We have five ducks.
A month or so later we are in bed around 7AM and Seamus starts going nuts barking and fussing. Our house has huge windows all along the side facing the pond and he can lay on the bed and look outside. We have a policy that we do not reward that behavior by getting up and putting him out, which is what he wants. So we lay there until he calms down then we get up and he gets to go outside. We look out the window and note there are only four ducks. We rush outside and hunt through the woods and Joe finds a headless Daisy. There is a gaping bloody hole where her neck used to be attached to her body. I can see Joe is upset by this and so I get a garbage bag and pick up what is left of her. We have a camera on the ducks outside and I review the footage. My breath catches as I see a fox cross the camera feed and the ducks scatter. Most went one way and Daisy went the other and the fox took her. We will never hear the Daisy laugh again.
A new policy is instituted. Whenever Seamus wants to go outside and the ducks are not locked up we get up and put him out as quickly as possible. We also start leaving the gate open so that he has free range of the yard via the doggie door into the kennel during the day while we are at work. Seamus becomes the best duck guard dog we could have hoped for. He is relentless. Watching all the time. He finally officially has the job that he assigned himself without us asking and he takes his responsibilities very seriously. If he’s not outside, he’s snoozing by the door and periodically getting up and performing a patrol around the perimeter of the dog’s wireless fence. Sometimes with the other dogs tagging along. Joe starts referring to Seamus and Casey as Batman and Robin.
One winter day we observe that the ducks are trudging out over the ice to the hole in the pond that was made by the aerator to have a swim. We coo and giggle over how cute they look and how fortunate that we had the aerator to keep them some unfrozen water. We head off to the local pub to watch the SU football game. Upon our return we note that there are two ducks on the ice and two in the water. Once is bobbing and floating, obviously dead. The other one in the water is nudging her dead companion with her bill. Joe grabs an axe and starts to break up the ice. He pulls out the kayak and I push him into the water he grabs the now dead Dottie and the duck still floating in the water and brings them back. The two standing on the ice take this as their cue and they trudge tiredly back to their house. He gives the survivor a warm bath and dries her up and returns her to her comrades.
Now we have three ducks. It seems we have to learn everything the hard way. The aerators are turned off and the holes allowed to ice up. We hypothesize that Dottie drowned one of two ways. Either she dove under the water, swam and got caught under the ice and couldn’t find her way back to open air or she got so tired of trying to boost her very large body onto the ice that she drowned.
The survivors Doris, Desiree and Debbie plod on doing their duck things as best they can through the winter without their pond. We start to notice that when they rest each of them is facing a different direction. This reminds Joe of the opening shot of Charlie’s Angels and Joe starts referring to them as the Angels.
Spring arrives, the pond thaws and the remaining Angels are a little less innocent. We witness them periodically chase wild ducks away. Some they don’t seem to mind though and buddy up with them. They especially seem to like the Blue Heron that hung around so much last year that we named it Oscar. Then a Mallard shows up and hangs around for a few days. They seem to enjoy its company and we wonder if it was one of the Mallard family that spent last Spring with us. Maybe they were catching up with each other, sharing war stories.
One early morning this Spring, Seamus starts barking and going nuts so I rush to let him out the back door. He takes off around the house to the front like a rocket. Five minutes later Doris comes waddling from around the front of the house. She’s limping and has feathers sticking out at odd angles. She is by herself. The Angels still stick together so its clear she did not go to the front of the house where the ducks never go by herself. Most likely a fox grabbed her and took her there and Seamus scared him off. We rejoice at this victory and heap praise and love on Seamus. After a day or two Doris’s limp is gone and she seems no worse for the wear. We count one victory. I wonder what others are there that we are unaware of.
Words of Wanderers 