It’s Saturday, and besides the Caturday felid post (coming up) we have a photo and three videos of Miss Duck and her babies having a postprandial rest on the rockes. This is the first weekiversity of their hatching, as they must have hatched last Saturday and made their way to Botany Pond in the morning. All four babies are doing well, and my hopes for their long-term survival and fledging have risen.
It’s typical for ducks, after a hearty feed, to find a quiet place to sleep. Miss Duck and her Brood of Four like to rest on a rock at the north end of the pond, with Miss Duck taking a position on the ledge above to watch and guard the brood. First, a photo:
And three short (one-minute) videos of the ducklings resting. “Rest” is hardly the word, for although they sleep, they also move around, stretch, wake up to have a drink of water, and flap their tiny wings. Here’s a view of the whole scene”
A closeup of the resting brood. Notice the black feetsies extending out, the scratching and preening, and the nictitating membranes closing when they sleep.
Here they’re more or less sound asleep, and you can measure their breathing rate (I counted 32 breaths in 30 second for the duck in the foreground). Notice the leg stretch 17 seconds in and a double leg stretch at 42 seconds.
I find watching sleeping ducks very restful, and could do it for hours (I often watch for the one hour that their naps usually last, both to relax and to prevent people from interrupting their nap).
Oh, and a first yesterday: I kissed a squirrel! They are now so tame they climb all over me to get a nut, whether or not I have nuts with me. One of them, “Skinnytail”, crawls all over my body, climbing up my leg and sometimes perching on my shoulder. Yesterday he sniffed my ear and I could hear him breathe, and when his back was by my mouth, I kissed it to see if I could. This is a first! (Yes, you’ll think me crazy, but I don’t care.)
Wasn’t “I Kissed a Squirrel” a hit single back around 2008?
LOL. I wrote a poem about kissing the squirrel to be sung to the tune of “I Saw the Light”, but I’m not going to repeat it here. Yes, there was a well known Katy Perry song called “I Kissed a Girl.” Maybe I should rewrite my lyrics to fit that one.
There are AI music production tools that could turn that into a polished recording in a matter of seconds.
I am so pleased that you are enjoying your time with the ducks. You seemed very low and broken hearted with all the awful things that happened to past broods. It sounds like the new family is lifting your spirits x.