The Chronicles of Donna the Duck:
Chapter 4: ENJOYING DONNA
This was the year we took up a new hobby, duck watching. We found every action fascinating. Even the duck walk or waddle looks funny as they sway from side to side and the faster they walk the funnier it gets. She had the habit of standing still, quacking loudly and her neck went up and down while doing it. I wondered what significance this head movement had and one day found me on hands and knees, head to head with Donna quacking in turn with her and raising my head up and down in turn with her. I did not come away with any more understanding of this routine, and fortunately no one caught me doing it as I hate to think what a visitor would have thought, catching this middle aged woman on her knees talking to a duck. We found the preening exercise fascinating too, every time she came out of water she had to re-preen her growing
feathers. The preen gland on her back above the tail feathers could be clearly seen and and she would roll her beak over it then stoke the oil all over the feathers. It seemed to be a rather hit and miss process but the result was a very even distribution of the oil and she always looked beautifully turned out, Each pruning resulted in a few feathers being pulled out and discarded but she never looked anything less than immaculate, so she must have known exactly which feather was ready for the old heave ho. Every evening after work we would open her gate and she would join us in the garden while we had a cup of coffee and relaxed for a while. She would keep near to us and quite often would settle down within a few feet of us, but if I put out a hand to touch her she would be off in an instant. I could watch, but not touch. I longed to be able to stroke her, but at this time she was not ready, I would have to wait.
This was an unusual summer for us. We were normally boaters having a narrow boat moored about 20 miles away. However at that time my husband Mel was in his 3rd year of a course that would qualify him as an acupuncturist. This meant a lot of hard work for him and throughout the summer he was away every Sunday. Therefore we could not spend our weekends on the boat and the problem of whether Donna would be able to boat with us was postponed. Looking back across the years it seems this was fortunate as it gave us the time to get really comfortable with each other and she became easy to handle. I spent most of my Sundays at home with the dogs and Donna and always made sure she had water to splash around in. We knew she needed a proper pond but that had to wait a while, but meanwhile she got an old tin bath. This had been lying about behind our garden shed for years as it had a split seam, but this is one of those things you should never throw away in case it comes in useful. It was time for this to be really useful. I bought a piece of pond 
liner and installed the bath. Our garden path at one spot is about 2 ft above the lawn, so I dug out some soil, lined it up against the path and in line with it, and surrounded it with rockery stone. It didn't look too bad when completed and I soon filled it with water. For a day or two Donna ignored its existence, except for a few sips now and then. Then suddenly, the penny dropped, she was tempted and she belly flopped into the water. We both ran to watch this momentous event and she gave us a real show. She splashed water all over the place and the water level went down rapidly. She trod water and flapped her wings and then to complete the show she went down beak first and swam round and round under water, emerging with lots of splashing and quacking as though to say "Oh this is fun" We were entranced by this performance which was repeated most days throughout the summer.As this 'pond' was not in her enclosure, she was now allowed the run of the garden, she waddled around, rummaging for slugs and worms and doing little damage. The only plants she seemed to like to 
nibble were the dahlias and the lily of the valley flowers that disappeared as soon as they emerged. I could not spray for aphids etc but I reckon she cleared plenty of insects to compensate and I was happy to let her wander as we got so much pleasure from her actions. Somehow it looked so natural and right to see her there. The dogs still took little notice of her and she often paddled after them and sometimes settled down as near as she could get to them. Perhaps she was beginning to think she was was a dog or perhaps she just liked their company.