The story so far.......

One Saturday morning last May l woke up to see a female Mallard on our balcony. When l looked again she had gone. Later Des asked me if l had been outside gardening as there was soil on the balcony floor. l looked and saw that there was an egg in a big blue pot where l had been growing this years tulips. Over the next 12 days another 7 eggs were laid, but we saw no sight of Mama Duck, as we had named her. Then she took up residence, sitting on the eggs for 28 days, and only flying off for an hour each evening to feed.

We went away on holiday in June but calculated that she would still be incubating upon on our return. The natural instinct for a mother duck when the eggs hatch is to get the ducklings to water the following morning. We live 5 floors up and they normally just go over the edge and float to the ground below. That is ideal when there is a nice, soft grassy landing below but we live above hard pavements and steps with railings. We sealed the balcony with a plastic dust sheet to prevent them falling to their death and put the R.S.P.C.A on alert. We also filled a large plastic tray with water as a temporary pond.....

On the Saturday evening when I was filling the pond I heard a small "cheep" and a tiny head popped from under Mama's wing. The timing was so fortunate. Overnight the other ducklings hatched. We saw Mama lead the babies into the temporary pond and enjoyed their first swim. The man from the R.S.P.C.A then arrived, with immaculate timing as Mama was getting a little stressed, and took them away to a local woodland pond. Being proud parents we visited every week and saw that amazingly 7 of them survived to reach adulthood.