Reply 20 of 25, by henryVK
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Introducing: Wilhelmine (Mine for short) the little duck that kept showing up in our yard last spring...
and was soon joined by her husband Beauregard (Beau).
I read up on ducks and since they like water a lot, we put up a little pool for them.
https://i.imgur.com/NZts734.mp4
Ducks are cool little birds with a surprising amount of personality. They love eating lettuce floating in water and will signal alarm by slightly raising the feathers on top of their head, giving the impression of a tiny mohawk. Female ducks will also softly beep when alarmed or quack when they're really mad or scared. When they're happy to see you (like when you come with a bucket of rice or other grains) they'll vigorously nod their heads.
Typically, Mine would land on the garage next to our garden in the early morning and wait for us to get up and feed her (lettuce and grains, sometimes boiled potatoes). She would even knock on the back door glass with her beak to signal her presence. She was generally very interested in our living room and started trying to come inside, which is where we had to draw the line. Ducks are useful because they eat garden pests like snails, slugs and aphids, but are a lot more nimble and less destructive than chickens.
One day Mine stopped coming to our terrace, likely because she started nesting somewhere else, but we're still hoping she'll return next year.
