One pond. It’s what used to be called a ‘horse pond’.

Two ducks. Female. One is a pale hybrid, pretty, friendly, probably a returning duckling from last year. The other is classic mallard female, an incomer, fiercely protective of her space, and her privacy.

Eventually, after one, two, three, warm days, twenty ducklings. At least I think it’s twenty. They keep moving to their mother’s calls, so it’s difficult to count.

20 ducklings. Bundles of fluff and more fluff, and minute cheeps. The hybrid mother has a screech of a call, brings her babies to her, hides them beneath her tail feathers. She floats on the pond, seemingly alone, then her brood slowly fan out from her, fight their way through the coarse leaves of the water irises, the golden flowers of marsh marigold.

Day four. 15 ducklings. The mallard has her original dozen, the hybrid is down to six. But I can hear cheeping and I follow the sound. There in a drain I’d not thought to cover are two tiny beings. One is dead and still, the other floats around in a space of maybe six square inches. I go down on my knees and rescue both, lay the dead one at the drain’s margins, and set the live one off on a path back to its mother. I watch it, fighting with the grass stalks, and at the same time, listen to its mother calling for it. The two meet, but just as quickly, the mother turns, leaves her offspring. I’ve touched it. She can smell me. This chick isn’t hers.

Later, when I take food out, I find another victim. It’s in obvious pain. Gingerly, I take it into one hand and stroke it with the other. My daughter is with me. She is a big tough daughter but I can see she is close to tears. “Stroke it,” I tell her, but she shakes her head.
“I want to, but I can’t. Poor thing.”

I stroke it and it lifts its head to me. That at least means its neck isn’t broken. But when I look, there’s a clear puncture wound. It lets out a cry. I stroke it again and whisper while I take it to the original nest site and lay it down. And tell it how sorry I am. And know it won’t survive.

Day five. 10 ducklings, early in the morning before the clouds are moving, and as I watch, it becomes nine ducklings. The hybrid has taken her eyes off her brood for long enough to let a moorhen in. I watch as one of the ducklings disappears beneath the water. There’s a brief struggle, then a scrap of body floats to the surface and the moorhen races for the cover of the pond margins. She has her own babies to feed.

Day six. The hybrid sits in the middle of the pond, her four babies around her. She screeches, desperate for food. I spread it out in the normal place and she calls them to it. They stumble across mud at the pond margins, across gravel, and finding the pellets, devour them while she stands guard. There’s not much competition. The moorhens won’t feed while I’m there, and I’m there so that the moorhens won’t feed.

The mallard stands a little away, unsure. Her babies stay on the pond.

Day seven, and the first thing I see when I come out is the body of another duckling at the side of the pond. The hybrid mother cries, but remains alone. How much time did she spend sitting on her eggs? How much time was given to hatching? Where was the father and what did he do other than hold her by the neck when the time came?

Day twelve. Two ducklings growing now, but no sign of any parents. So they race back and forth from the pond to the food, pitting their wits against the adult residents and the pecking order. Crops overfull because the food is layers’ pellets, but at least they’re alive. The last two out of twenty.

Day thirteen. The hybrid screeches. Her adopted babies race to her side, readers already of her code, and she leads them to the pellets and guards them while they feed.

Next year, they’ll be back. And maybe, one of them will know me.