Smallie has become Mister Cactus Face
walking to their favourite tree from Peterborough Street, and I feared the worst for them.
For whatever reason they had shifted up the river, close to the intersection of
Park Terrace with Bealey & Deans Avenues. But at least - they were there and still twelve ducklings
with their parents. So no loss for more than two weeks.
Smallie had gone through such an impressive transformation that I could not identify the baby from a distance
and thought it was lost. But it had just gone from white and brown striped fluffy ball into a big
duckling, slightly smaller than the other ones, and the only one with some white fuzzies left in the face -
looking a bit like a cactus.
As it has no white mark under the eye I gather it is a male duckling.
My husband - who probably rightly thinks that I am a bit obsessive with the ducks - accompanied me
this time, and while feeding the birds a massive magnitude 4.8 earthquake hit Christchurch.
I felt the ground rolling under my feet and the trees were swaying. The ducks were unimpressed.
What a happy New Year's Eve ;-)
After breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea or dinner, or whichever meal or snack it was, they run to the water to take a drink.
In the early days Mum goes in first to teach them, when they are older they know what to do and she joins them later.
| I think they also know my voice because I always talk to them. I wonder what they would say if they could talk our language ;-) Quak quak!
|