Hugh Wormald—The Season's Duck Breeding at E. Dereham 137


The large number of birds we found deal in the shell calls for

some notice. As a rule we like to set our eggs so that about forty of

different varieties should hatch at the same time. Then by mixing

up the young of different sorts before cooping them out, one does away

"with the danger of a hen killing ducklings of another brood if they get

into her coop—since if each hen (I like to have two or three broods of

the same age in one enclosure) has, say, three or four Gadwall, Shoveler,

Falcated, and Carolina, they cannot tell their own foster children from

those of the next coop. This year it so happened that the day before

we expected our three largest hatchings (forty to seventy eggs) to come

off, we had a bad thunderstorm. In our experience, thunder invariably

causes many ducklings to die in the shell, either just before or after

chipping. We presume this mortality is caused by the electricity in

the air. On the whole, we are well satisfied with the season’s results.

May could not have been a better month for young ducks, but since the

middle of June we have had the worst possible weather, cold and wet

almost every day, and it was very difficult to keep quite small ducklings

alive. But now (27th' July) all the ducklings' should be safe—bar

accidents. Some are already moulting from their first plumage into

full winter plumage. This has been an extremely good laying season,

the fifty-two ducks which laid eggs averaging rather better than 12-5

eggs each. Four laid only seven, one six, and one nine eggs, but these

were counteracted by most of the others laying two clutches each ;

indeed, the Spotbill, one Shoveler, and one American Wigeon laid three

clutches each.


We were lucky in losing very few eggs from vermin. To our know¬

ledge the only losses from this cause were two Yellow-billed eggs, one

Pochard, two Tufted, and a full clutch of Chestnut-breasted Teal,

whose nest we had not found, but the duck had just begun to sit. All

these losses, except one egg, were by water-voles, as proved by a few

strychnined eggs in the robbed nests. The exception was a large female

common rat suckling a litter. She only got about 3 feet from the

nest after her second visit.


Perhaps the most important event of all occurred towards the end


•6


of July, when two very strong Canvas-backed ducklings hatched from

eleven eggs sent to me from Canada. These we believe to be the first



