It began in my childhood with a rather tatty Khaki Campbell called, for reasons which now elude me, Dick-Duckly-Mud. My mother sold her along with the whole flock, but assured me that the buyer had promised to pension her off for the rest of her days. I don't know if he did, but her spirit is with me still.

When fate granted me at last the chance to move to my beloved Wales, I was determined to have a stream and keep ducks. Estate agents showed no understanding of my request; they ignored it, or offered the odd stagnant ditch or beautiful gardens with trout streams for astronomical sums of money. The dream began to fade. Then, while driving around looking at houses, I stayed a night in the Cross Foxes at Trawsfynydd.

While our dinner was being cooked, my friend and I sat at the bar doing a reccy for the next day. We got into conversation with a group of locals, and someone asked me what I was looking for. I described my dream house (with no expectation, I might add, of ever getting it), and the lady behind the bar finished pulling her pint and remarked, 'A friend of mine is selling a house like that. I'll ring him up.'

She did, and I found myself contemplating an ancient farmhouse and one acre which was basically the bit that was no good for farming but was a ducks' paradise - complete with stream.

During the interval required for legal processes I used to come up whenever I could to look at it. And I saw, every time, a notice by a house on the A470 - 'DUCK EGGS'. A few weeks after I finally moved in I passed that house and the notice said 'DUCKS FOR SALE'. So I acquired half a dozen Khaki Campbells in two sacks and took them home to the duck house lovingly prepared for them. I had also acquired a pair of Muscovies but they had to wait till the next day as there wasn't room in the sacks. I installed the Khakis in their house and looked forward to their excitement on seeing the stream. However, they had come from a place where the land went straight up the mountainside from their house. As far as they were concerned, up was the only way. I let them out and they went straight up my little hill and vanished in the bracken, whence one could hear them talking to each other, but they remained invisible till fetched down for bed. Next day was the same, but I fetched the Muscovies complete with house that evening, and the following morning let them all out. The brown people went straight up the hill, but Percy and Mrs Percy looked around and promptly went for a dip. Then they set out up the hill, there was considerable quacking from the bracken, and they returned followed by the whole flock. They all plunged in with much splashing and shaking of feathers, and the stream has been occupied ever since.

The one disadvantage of the stream is that the deep part is about ten feet straight down from the yard, and my knees do not take well to this. Fortunately I had a duck dog. She was called Frosty, and prefered ducks to sheep, which she found interesting but potentially dangerous. Frosty has sadly departed from us now and is hopefully herding ducks on high.

There are always ducks sitting around on my front yard. Their numbers have increased, and also their variety. Whenever I feel in the least down, I just go outside for a look, and they work their magic. To quote a poem I learned in my youth, God made ducks 'in case man should so forgetful of his maker be, as to take himself quite seriously'. I think they do their job very well.

OF DELINQUENT DUCKS.........

My first introduction to call ducks was via two little drakes that I cadged from a friend, who had hatched then in an incubator, their mother having allowed the crows to eat all the offspring from the eggs in her own care. They were exceptionally tame, totally devoted to each other (declining wives when offered) and caused no trouble to anyone, except for regularly flying over the fence and then walking up and down demanding to be brought back in. They were occasionally rather rude to the respectable married proper ducks but were treated tolerantly with appropriate disdain. Unfortunately, after several happy years at Bodyfuddau, a weasel or something got in through a tiny ventilation hole under the roof of their house and decapitated them.

Hearing of someone who would supply call ducks by rail, I ordered three drakes, thinking that if they were going to be that devoted it would be as well to insure against a single bereft drake in the event of any tragedy. They duly arrived and settled in to the back garden and pond and seemed quite happy till spring, when they began pacing up and down the fence and eyeing the 'real' ducks whenever these ventured near. It was clear that whereas two had made for real friendship, three made for gang behaviour. I decided in view of this they needed wives, but their behaviour on meeting the wives was so appalling that I gave the wives to a friend who had a lonely call drake with good manners. Meantime my three took to beating up the geese!

Finally I acquired three more wives and, as I did not have three possible separate enclosures, a friend took one drake. Peace descended: the white drake lived out front with his wife and never molested anyone. The little grey and white chap was given two wives in the garden - and promptly fled, but later settled down to family life and became a model of respectability. To this day he still goes by the name of hooligan. Then disaster struck again - I lost the little white duck and had to put her grieving widower back with his brother. The moment I let them out the next morning there was a great reunion and the poor wives were told to get lost. What's more, the grey drake at once began to terrorise the poor geese again so that they did not dare go out to eat the grass. Alyosha, the white one, just hung around egging him on. I took temporary measures and divided the garden into two enclosures with a pond each, and left the white drake with one wife outside with the geese, shutting the hooligan into the nearest part with the wife who is most devoted to him (a rather one-sided attachment). She immediately settled on her eggs in my rockery and he was pacing up and down the fence for three weeks, talking to his brother through it. The geese finally realised that they could safely graze.

As an antidote to the above tale of woe I shall now recount what has been happening in the front yard (main duck territory). I have there a flock of assorted domestic ducks which included at one time two extremely ancient Khaki Campbell ducks and a Welsh Harlequin drake. The latter, when not pursuing his general career of rape, as befits one of Khaki Campbell heredity, spent all his time at the side of one of the old ladies. They went for walks together, visited a part of the stream away from the others, and slept side by side with their heads under their wings. All this must have been by his choice as she was almost completely blind and at bedtime followed the conversation of the flock to go to the house. If he was there before her and she did not come in behind the flock, he would come rushing out, find her and lead her in by talking. This was a few years back now and they have both gone.

This year [2000] they are all preoccupied with procreation. Nests all over the place and hordes of ducklings.

 

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