This morning I mucked out the duck house, and captured pictures and a GIF of ducklings flapping their wings, with cute little feathers.

But first, three cam shots from overnight, showing sleepy and active ducklings… but also showing a benefit of the new position of the waterer, letting me see how the level drops overnight:

Mucking out the duck house, which freaks out the ducklings:

I gave them a few strawberries; they weren’t sure about that, though ate them:

Plus the usual leafy treats:

And some apple peel:

Hey Bert:

Peeking:

Flapping wings; look at those little proto-feathers:

A GIF of flapping wings, plus preening and drinking:

More flapping:

Today I’ve included a few GIFs of the ducklings, along with the usual assortment of cuteness.

Reviewing the cam recordings, I noticed three ducklings tapping the pop door yesterday morning:

I’m not sure why; there wasn’t anything out there at the time that I could see on the pond cam; perhaps they’re getting a bit stir-crazy, wanting to get into the pond (though have never seen that door open), or thought it made an interesting noise.

Here’s a GIF of that:

Betty the Buff duckling flapping her wings; they’ve certainly grown a bit:

A GIF edition:

On to the usual treats and such:

This morning I posted a slow-motion video on YouTube of a duckling dunking their head under the water; it’s a little long, and includes some further and closer clips, so you might want to skip around in the video. Here’s a GIF edition of one dunk and head shake:

Bert drinking water draining from the duck house as the ducklings splash around in the pool:

Bert peeking at the ducklings:

Watching me:

Today I removed the baby duckling feeder, so they now have the full-sized feeder tube and full-sized water dispenser.

Now that the ducklings are big enough to be able to eat from the feeder tube, I was planning on removing the feeder for young ducklings (actually designed for chicks). Early this morning one of the ducklings briefly got their head stuck in the feeder hole, so that was a sign it was time:

The morning pic:

I removed and rinsed out the baby feeder:

Duckling swim time:

The water is cloudy as I dumped the remaining food from that feeder in the water; they might as well eat it from there rather than wasting it:

Afternoon swim time:

You can see a couple of them eating from the feeder tube:

More eating from the tube:

Today was a rainy day, but the ducklings made their own rain inside the duck house by splashing around in the pool.

Hey there:

An animated GIF of the rain on the pond and Bert by the duck house:

A better quality static shot of that (the lettuce on the roof was waiting to be given to the ducklings):

Bert and the ducklings:

Another GIF of Bert and the ducklings chattering at each other, with more rain:

Later, some ducklings under and on top of the EcoGlow:

Afternoon swim during a break in the rain:

Lots of preening:

GIF of spreading tiny wings and preening:

Tiny wings again:

Today, the ducklings discovered the joy of swimming.

But first, I liked the color variations of these three cam captures, of the night-vision, early morning, and lighter morning:

Amazing what a difference it makes to the light level just having a vent open.

The traditional morning greeting:

I put the paint tray pool back in the house. Bert took a peek:

They took the bait of treats:

Oooh, it’s wet:

Hey, I like that:

Everybody (almost) in the pool!

Dunking duckling:

An animated GIF of that picture; you can see dunking underwater, and the one at the top of the ramp preening, which helps spread the waterproofing oils:

Afternoon swims:

I’ll continue morning and afternoon supervised swims for the next couple of weeks, until their 5th week, removing the tray before I depart each time. After that, I’ll be able to leave the tray in there full-time. About three weeks after that, at about their 8th week, they’ll be able to go into the pond.