Environmental Story 7

We started our search over at the far end of the school where there is a narrow dyke where water has gathered. And sure enough we saw the nine ducklings and their mother swimming along. We took certain notes and drew pictures of them. We saw them eat yellow flowers. Two boys threw sticks into the water and the ducklings got scared and went further away. Then the mother called them back with a simple quack. The baby ducks seemed to like diving with their tails sticking up vertically. They were probably looking for roots at the bottom of the pond. Then we saw the boldest duckling come out of the pond. It only got so far though when it was scared so it ran back into the pond. The ducklings snapped at weeds at the other side of the pond. When we were going to leave the mother duck came out of the water and the baby ducks followed her. They walked all round the field. The teacher wanted to take a photograph of them. Teacher ran after them and took the photograph and they went back into the water. The next time we visited them we brought some bread to feed to them. They seemed ravenous. Bread flew everywhere and the ducklings and their mother was right on its trail. When someone's copy fell in I thought the ducks were going to eat that as well. We drew more pictures and took more notes. Then we went back into school and looked up ducks on the Internet. We learned that the female lays one egg a day until they are all laid. But only then does she sit on them. This is so that they all hatch at the same time. It takes a month to hatch the eggs. The drake leaves on the tenth day of incubation. We learned quite a lot. I think it was fun studying the mallard duck.

By Karina.

Stories 1 and 2	Stories 3 and 4	Stories 5 and 6
Story 7		Posters