The image shows one of the muscovy ducks we used to rescue each year in the Spring. If we protected them, then predators wouldn’t take them and they’d go on to repay us by pooping everywhere around the house!
Here in the marina in Holland where we’re now tied up, we’ve just watched a mother duck try to look after her clutch of nine ducklings. On the first day she had nine ducklings. She was down to six ducklings on the second day. She only had three ducklings yesterday and today, she has none. This is really sad. Nature can be so very cruel. We don’t know but we think the magpies hereabouts are the villains of the peace.
Wow, that is sad, I love ducks. So big birds are plucking them from the water to eat?
It is the same every year. I guess it is a case of only the fit survive. Our boat is close to a wooded area known as Hemmeland and there are hawks (the Dutch called them buzzards) living there. I think they have mouths to feed too. Nature at work. But a great pity to see the cute little ducklings being taken.
Very Sad! Yes, nature can be very cruel and tough. One of our pet parrots, Tweetie, saw a Hawk on television when she was very young. She went totally nuts, screaming and flapping all around in terror. Since she was born in captivity, it was an innate, instinctive thing… not a learned thing. Now that she’s a lot older and wiser, she calmly watches the Hawks on television, realizing that TV is simulated images.
That is one very smart parrot. Our dog also watches the TV. We’ve recorded a couple of dog programmes and the dog sits in front of the TV watching these programmes with her tail wagging making funny whining noises. Who understands animals!?
Your dog must be one of the very smart ones! My aunt had a dog, and if you’d say, “Lassie is on,” she would go running to the TV; she’d then watch the entire show and (at the end) leave. Our two parrots have their own TV, and they learn a lot from it. When an America’s Got Talent rerun was on with a girl singing, i asked Tweetie if she could go on AGT and sing like that to win a million dollars. Her response was, “Probably not!” She can sing whole songs that i do not know the lyrics to, like a song from the Backsteet Boys, “Tell my why…”
Amazing creatures. Thanks. Richard