A return

Earlier this week, we spotted that there was a new brood of ducklings in the quad. Only four, which suggested that the brood had actually been around long enough for a larger cohort to have been thinned somewhat.

Anyway, much more interestingly, the solo duckling, hitherto abandoned by its mother, now wanders around with this new brood and its mother. Given that mother ducks are pretty intolerant of non-immediate-family ducklings, this points to the new brood being half brothers and sisters of the (formerly) solo duckling.

In other news, the seagull chicks just get bigger and bigger. They're still all grey and fluffy, but they've already started trying out their wings. Completely unsuccessfully as yet, but their development is a lot faster than that of the ducks. I guess that illustrates the superiority of the regurgitated seagull diet over the insects-and-bread-based one of the quad-bound ducklings.