The young mallard, born in May are now fully fledged and flying.
Ten young mallard of the 19 born have made it through. With the 5 older ducks this gives a total of 15.
I have noticed that ducks are affected by the full moon.
Much more flighty and nervous.
Lots of quacking, right through the night.
Makes me wonder what call from the wild are they responding to.
Once the full moon has passed the mood changes.
Its really funny to see the young ducks take off on their maiden flight. Sometimes they will take off and land almost immediately, as though afraid of heights.
Eventually they get the hang of it.
The problem then becomes landing again.
The area around the pond has a lot of trees and some scrub,and is surrounded by a high fence to keep Mr Foxy at bay.
So landing can be a challenge, even for an experienced flier. This often results in many aborted landings and is often concluded by a crash landing.
I suppose the one certainty that helps to concentrate the mind is that not landing is not an option.
The photos above shows the mallard at feeding time near the pond, and also a photo I downloaded which is a really good shot of a mallard coming in to land.
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