Wednesday 10 March 2010

Injured duck makes it against all odds


We've gained a little friend here at Forda! It's one of the resident male ducks, and he somehow managed to seriously injure his foot last Autumn.
The first couple of months he was hardly capable of anything but sliding around on his belly, with his injured leg trailing behind him uselessly. When swimming, he would go round in circles. The only serious means of getting around quickly was flying.
On closer observation we found his leg and especially his flipper seriously mangled. We gathered that he must have either been attacked by a predator or got tangled up one way or another.

Against all odds, he survived, be it with a little help from us. We fed him extra rations of grain and as long as there was water close by to slide into, and land & take off from, he was relatively safe from his enemies, especially Mr. Fox!

He now comes and visits us in the garden at the main house on a daily basis and still demands his special ration. He has become quite tame and will even eat out of Gillians hand.
Being an invalid will probably mean that he'll never mate (again) in his life, but at least he is healing slowy and can hopefully enjoy another spring and summer at Forda!