mother love

This seems to be our duck now. Having walked round the garden, with her drake, trying out possible homes she has finally made her choice. This is where a duck nested last year and successfully raised a large family.
The unanswerable question: is this last year's duck returning to her old nest ; one of last year's ducklings returning to her birthplace; or a complete outsider.

Himself has been dispatched to the outer reaches of the garden to keep watch for danger. He stands like a statue when he see, hears or senses something. He assesses the danger and then continues feeding, or flies away. I think to distract .... not to flee.

She stays on the nest to lay, then leaves to feed. Until she has laid enough eggs she will not sit on the eggs too long. Once she stops laying she will then begin incubating so all the young hatch at the same time. The nest is in a raised bed just in front of the duck in the photo. She knew that something was around so kept one eye on the camera and the other on the nest. She was obviously thirsty and drank for a long time. With a final quick glance at the nest she waddled off in the opposite direction, drawing danger away from her eggs.