Wild ducks have laid eggs in my plant pot!

[elanfan]

Hope you’re prepared ready to catch mum and the kids to get them safely to water. Appreciate it will stress her but could you drop a dog cage with the top removed over the top to contain her until they all hatch? If you have a pet carrier I’m sure she and the ducklings will all fit in. Could you engage help getting photos of capture and release on nearby water? Be a great end to the story. Wonder if they’ll return next year?

[Toilet Duck]

Well, when I got up this morning, looks like I missed all the action . Henrietta has gone and all that remains is what's left in her plant pot nest:







I've had a good look around and can't see any bits of egg shell on the floor. I don't know how many hatched, but I'm pretty sure there aren't the remains of 11 eggs in the nest (which I originally counted). It's a bit of a mystery. Disappointed that we didn't get to see her leave with her ducklings in tow, and I guess I'll never know which way they headed and to where! Good luck Henrietta!

[elanfan]

That’s a shame. Where’s your nearest watercourse. She will have headed that way.

[Toilet Duck]

So since Henrietta and her ducklings departed a few weeks ago I've been finally able to re-point some brickwork round the back. Over the last few weeks, I've seen a drake and a female duck visiting the garden, and another female that looks very much like Henrietta but I can't be sure. Anyway, I was wiping off the brick dust from the planters near the back door (it was the one on the right that Henrietta made a nest in, I've since removed the rosemary plant as it was taking over):



Guess what I found in the plant pot on the left:





I have no idea who has laid them or when, there are only three eggs so far. I cannot believe this has happened a second time!!! I will have to watch out to try and see who is going in there, it is an even worse place than the original plant pot as there is hardly any cover, just a few strawberry plants.

[Turn7]

eggcellent!!!

[Toilet Duck]

No sign of any ducks this morning, but they have obviously been busy in the night. There are now four eggs in the new nest

[Toilet Duck]

Another egg laid overnight:

[Ashtray83]

Incredible.. you need some sort of camera to try and catch what’s going on

[Nightmare]

This is so cool - it’s almost like there’s an internal ‘good places to lay eggs’ duck memo system! Ooh, you could pinch one and incubate it and grow your own duck....

[Mr Pointy]

Shouldn't one of the parents be sat on the eggs to incubate them?

[Nightmare]

Maybe not with the current ambient temperature?

[TheBALDpuma]

They will be fine unicubated until they're incubated to hatch them I believe

ETA: I read in a newspaper a lady bought duck eggs from waitrose, incubated them and hatched ducklings!

Edited by TheBALDpuma on Monday 22 June 17:34

[Toilet Duck]

Well, when I got up this morning this is what I found:



I can't be 100% sure, but I am pretty much convinced it's Henrietta back again. If it is I don't think that bodes well for her last lot of ducklings in the other plant pot nest as I believe they should still be reliant on mum at this stage and not gone off on their own

She didn't hang around this morning, I don't know what time she left but it must have been by around 11ish. I've been at home most of the day and not seen any sign of her again today, as I type this the nest is unoccupied. This is the current nest status:



Six eggs, so she laid another one during the night

Thinking about it, last time this happened the nest was left alone with the eggs until she'd laid the full lot (11 last time). From then on, she was on it first thing in the morning when I got up, and still there when darkness came so she must only go off for food/drink in the night. I'm wondering if ducks don't sit on the nest "properly" until they have laid a full load?

[Toilet Duck]

***NEWS FLASH****

Henrietta and a drake have just landed in the garden. She's come over and tucked into the duck pellets and had a good drink from the roasting tray





They have curled up under a tree in the garden now. I reckon she will get in the plant pot latter and hopefully there will be another egg tomorrow

[Toilet Duck]

Today:

[offspring86]

Toilet Duck said:

Today:

May want to get that red one looked into...

On a more serious note, fantastic thread!

My sister bought 4 duck eggs off our postman (small village, close community) around 10 years ago and ordered an incubator off the net. A while later 2 of the 4 hatched and spent the next few years roaming our garden. They’d be put away in a rabbit hutch at night and then let out every morning. One of them (Jumper) was hugely territorial and made sure my parents cats knew their place (I.e. anywhere but near the ducks).

Fascinating creatures, I could spend all day watching them go about their business,

[gtidriver]

This is Marj, ive managed to go from her flying out of her nest when i open the front door to standing really close to her. here are her two eggs, im sure they should be hatching very soon.

[CharlesdeGaulle]

gtidriver said:

here are her two eggs, im sure they should be hatching very soon.

Pigeons are to nest-building what Myra Hindley was to baby-sitting.

[davidexige]

A couple of years ago we got a few duck eggs off a friend and stuck them under one of our broody chickens, who successfully hatched them, this year two of the females started to disappear for most of the day, had a look around the garden and found they were sitting on a couple of nests, so we decided to leave them and see what happened.

Last week.


A couple of days ago

[CharlesdeGaulle]

That's fantastic. What a lovely thing to have in your garden.