{"id":523,"date":"2010-07-30T13:33:26","date_gmt":"2010-07-30T12:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/?p=523"},"modified":"2010-07-31T12:39:14","modified_gmt":"2010-07-31T11:39:14","slug":"the-duckling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/?p=523","title":{"rendered":"the duckling"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-523 gallery-columns-4 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0144.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0144-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0151.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0151-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0147.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0147-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0148.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0148-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0150.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0150-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0152.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0152-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0149.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/IMG_0149-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>There was a duck living in one of our lower pots (see above first photo&#8230;) she&#8217;d made a nest there and had been sitting there very quietly for a long, long time.\u00a0 Well.\u00a0 Yesterday they hatched- all nine of them. And then today (they waste no time) they all leapt off the boat- one by one, following mother duck.\u00a0 Then they simply swam off and around the boat and made a little camp for themselves on the mud-bank.\u00a0 I sat and watched them for ages, the baby chicks following mother duck around and being very cute. I noticed two were particularly pathetic, and one just kept rolling over in the mud- it couldn&#8217;t hack the cruel reality of the non-nest world.\u00a0 And then it kept running under it&#8217;s mum and wriggling.\u00a0 Eventually I had to stop watching them and get on with some work.\u00a0 Next time I went out (some 70minutes later) the ducklings were 2 down, only 7 left.\u00a0 So Pat and I scoured the banks to find the lost two but couldn&#8217;t, and eventually found one.\u00a0 So Pat rescued him from the mud, as he had clearly been abandoned by his family and was looking very peeky.\u00a0 And now he&#8217;s in a box surrounded by some earth and duck-down from the nest and with a small saucer of water next to him. (or her).\u00a0 But all the little duckling does is shiver- so I&#8217;m not sure he\/she&#8217;ll make it.\u00a0 Maybe I should name it, then I don&#8217;t have to worry about the gender so much&#8230;. Cheepy- Peeky Cheepy.\u00a0 (Although there&#8217;s not much cheeping going on at the moment).\u00a0 Cheepy will need warmth, love, water and eventually worms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There was a duck living in one of our lower pots (see above first photo&#8230;) she&#8217;d made a nest there and had been sitting there very quietly for a long, long time.\u00a0 Well.\u00a0 Yesterday they hatched- all nine of them. And then today (they waste&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wild-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":546,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions\/546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onaboat.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}