Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes April 8 2009

The drakes on the old mill pond outnumber the ducks three to one. She has even co-responded with a white husband by the look of it, while some of her children have paler faces than the rest.

The one at the back has a lovely yellow eyestripe and the little one bottom left has a very dusky face. However, I wonder if mum is actually that promiscuous after all? When I was a small lad, I remember finding a wild duck's nest on the side of a straw stack on my father's Norfolk farm, which contained not only duck eggs but 10 pheasant's eggs as well.

There must be something comforting to other mothers about a big pile of down and the sight of all those smooth white eggs which makes them want to start their own family right there, without the bother of building a new home.

Several times I have seen mother ducks sharing the same nest and I suspect that goes for blue tits as well among others. After all, a very young mother might want help from the experienced matron.

Another unusual thing I observe most years is how some mallard want to nest far from water in the most hostile habitat possible in Sussex for a water bird '“ namely, the dry downs. Walpole-Bond noted this 70 years ago when he said that about half a dozen pairs in Sussex nest on the bare East Sussex downs above beyond the cliffs of Beachy Head.

"To reach the Channel," he said, "and I know they do '“ they must be carried down. Otherwise not one would get there alive."

Interesting. Did he mean by human hand, or on mother''s back? Hardly that. I know woodcock are said to carry young between their legs to safety, but not mallard surely?

There is a possibility that the ducklings leapt over the cliffs. I have seen them float down safely from nests in willow trees, and goslings have been filmed for TV in Iceland falling to safety from nests among the larva fields.

They are a day old when they jump, unlike plump guillemots which sometimes crash disastrously on their first freefall flights. But these ducklings in the picture face a thousand other hazards from pike to magpies, foxes, rats and even moorhens.