Edmund Ault has sent us some photos of mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) ducklings, and you can never see too many of these. (We should have some in Botany Pond by April 19.) Edmund’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
These ducklings are on the River Witham, in the centre of Grantham, Lincolnshire, and are the first I have seen this year. I regularly feed the ducks on this stretch of river, but I wasn’t aware that there was a nest until I saw the brood this morning; I think they must have hatched first thing this morning (31st March). And what a brood it is: 16 ducklings!
Most of the brood are sheltering under their mother:
More:
The mother duck led her brood for a walk away from the river; when she got back to the river she happily jumped off a small concrete wall (about 3 feet high) and expected her brood to follow suit – which all of them did, although reluctantly:
The brood moved upstream and tried to scale a weir; although the weir is only about a foot high the rush of water was far too great for them and eventually they turned around and went back:
Lovely. It really is Prime Duck Season at WEIT! 🙂
D.A.
NYC 🗽
Fine photos, close-ups of the ducklings in particular.
That’s a huge brood! Nice pictures!
Gorgeous close-ups of the ducklings! Lovely thing to see and be able to capture in photos. A refreshing interlude. Thanks.