The ballad of Mildred The Mallard

This last spring, we bought another dozen chickens, and eight ducks. The ducklings all looked the same, but it turned out that four of them were peking ducks, and four were mallards. Actually, although all the chicks looked the same, it transpired that three of them were roosters, but that's a story for another day.

Nevertheless, in time, four of the ducklings turned into medium sized brown mallards, who gave us beautiful little green eggs, and the other four turned into quite large black and white pekings, who gave us large porcelain-like white eggs. We ended up with three female mallards, and one drake, and two female pekings, and two drakes. Here's a slightly grainy picture that gives a bit of an idea of the difference between mallard and regular eggs...

One of the upsides for children growing up on a farm is that you never have to explain any aspect of the cycle of life, as it's regularly laid out in all its glory, and so it was with the ducks. The much larger peking drakes repeatedly, and frequently, mated one of the mallards in particular, who seemed to be a little slower, or perhaps a little less aware, than her sister. In a sort of an animal kingdom version of the Stockholm Syndrome, this particular mallard, whom we named Mildred, came to consider herself a peking, and when the other mallards eventually learned to fly, and would fly away to neighborhood ponds, she stayed with the pekings.

Every evening, the mallards would return to our place to spend the night, but every morning, off they'd go in search of adventure, while Mildred and the flightless pekings would waddle about our paddock looking for duck-y food. I don't know if you've ever seen ducks waddling, but they are seriously cute, and I would often joke that they quacked me up.

It was initially kind of pathetic to see poor little brown Mildred obediently following her larger, earth-bound captors around, while her brother and sisters flew free every day, but it actually turned out that it was to save her life. One evening about five weeks ago, the mallards chose to walk home from the pond over the road, instead of flying as they usually did, and in the gloom and gathering darkness, a passing motorist failed to see the trio, and that was the end of them.

None of the remaining ducks seemed to miss the squished mallards, and all seemed well. Mildred continued to give us gem-like green eggs, hidden in new nests every day. Our chickens would mostly obediently lay their eggs in their designated laying boxes, but the ducks find new and inventive places every day, and every day becomes a treasure hunt. If you look very closely at this picture, you can get the idea...



We were in a sort of avian nirvana, but as Solomon once opined, "This too shall pass", and pass this did.

Mildred eventually learned that she, too, could fly, and she began to obey her mallard instincts, taking to the sky, albeit only twenty or so feet high, every morning, and coming back each evening to see her friends. It was actually heart warming to see. She would arrive with a great quacking and beating of wings, and the pekings would rush towards her as fast as they could waddle, with similar great quackings, and they would sort of snuggle up in a duck-y sort of way, but the next day, she'd be off again, and gradually one day's absence became two, and then three.

She found a new place to lay her pretty eggs, and over time, the pekings seem to have forgotten her. For instance, out of routine, she arrived in the morning today instead of the normal evening, and went pathetically looking for her friends, but in the wrong paddock. She waddled all round, looking this way and that, and quacking loudly, but it was the wrong time of day, and the pekings were in a different paddock, and couldn't hear her. Eventually, she left, bereft and bewildered.

She returned tonight, and was immediately pursued by one of the roosters of immoral intent, but she could fly faster than he could run, and she got away, but had to leave the yard, again without finding her old friends.

Poor Mildred. Who knows what the future holds for her? Will she ever find her old mates again? Will she find happiness, or will she have a dusk encounter with a fast moving horseless carriage? Only time will tell.

It's so sad. In the words of Ronnie Milsap, it is almost like a song.

It's the Ballad of Mildred the Mallard.