European Gardening: BIRDS IN THE GARDEN, 1 by wallaby1

wallaby1 wrote:
Hi Pat, we have a water drain along the front of our house, dyke, creek, ditch, beck, whatever you want to call it! It has engineering bricks along the bottom for the full length of the property, they are the same as the old Victorian bricks going along the back of the house, the ones you can see in the pic with Straypuss. It hadn't been dug out for 20 years when we moved here, there was quite a depth of soil/leaf mix to be dug and it was full of irises the previous owners had planted and spread them. No water could flow though, we keep it dug out and unless it's very dry weather we have water in it. You can see a bridge behind the ducks in the first pic, and bullrushes, Typha at the edge of the bricks down a slope. I have planted different grasses and water plants along the edges. There is a brick well just through the pipe under the bridge, a deeper hollow which holds more water, but the drain on the other side of that is much deeper and there are always ducks at this time of year. I have had newly hatched ducks around, one got lost and Mother nowhere to be seen, so I mothered it and I really could have kept it, but they are best with their own, I called the RSPCA and they collected it. It had taken me on as Mother, snuggled into me and went to sleep, they are so sweet and people eat them. There are lakes around Lincoln, it's gravel pit country, they are about 5 miles away but the drains probably provide them with what they want.

I might get to see some ducks with more white on them, the male does look to have a small white patch just above his beak so they might be related.

Ducks do have some dodgy habits, beaks like shovels, they will eat you out of house and home, and the size of their depositories is also undesirable, but the babies are so adorable, they follow you everywhere.

The drain from the bridge