It has been a funny old month at The Great Urban Ark. 

Not long after the last issue coming out I arrived home to discover our female Indian Runner Duck dead in the chicken run.  While she was covered with blood there were no signs of an attack and the rest of the birds were fine.  She was simply stretched out against the fence, her white feathers stained red.   

To say we were upset was an understatement. We’ve raised our two Indian Runners by hand since they came out of their eggs. They’ve swum up and down our bathtub, woken us for early morning feeds with raucous quacking, and provided us with a lot of laughter. 

Scooter and Wobbles would regularly mob me when I arrived home, not letting me go until they had been petted and fussed over. If I sat down on the garden step with a slice of bread they would take it in turns to clamber on my lap and wolf down chunks and nibble my cheeks.  

As we buried Wobbles under a lavender bush we noticed something that was somehow far worse than her death. Scooter, who had been her constant companion all her life, was wandering around the garden making quiet little peeping noises. 

He went from the water bucket to the day nest and settled down, still peeping away to himself.  From there, two minutes later he moved the night pen where he pecked around and peeped, before heading to the front step. 

I sent Miss 9 to fetch a slice of bread and called him over.  But this time he didn’t climb on my lap or even look at the bread.  He simply peeped and wandered off.  For the rest of the evening we watched him go through this routine. 

Every now and then a wild duck would fly over and quack.  Scooter would run frantically to the day nest, only to return peeping quietly again.  I have never seen anything so pathetic or heartbreaking in my life.  His distress in many ways was far worse than losing Wobbles – how do you explain to a duck that his mate isn’t coming back?

I finally found the courage to email Lesley, the lovely breeder who gave us Scooter and Wobbles 18 months ago. She replied the next morning and mentioned she had a young female Runner that had not taken a mate yet – were we interested?  I emailed TMoTH and asked what he thought.  He sent a text in reply telling me to arrange a time for us to visit Lesley.  Neither of us could bear the thought  of Scooter pining – we had left him that morning still going through his routine searching for Wobbles and refusing to eat. 

That night we all piled in the car, with the cat cage in tow, and drove to Silverdale.  Lesley had a spot of bad news when we arrived – the Indian Runner she’d had in mind had turned out to be a boy! 

Flipper had lots of personality but we really wanted a mate for Scooter. Lesley smiled and asked us to go down to the duck pen with her – and there was the most beautiful snowy white little girl duck.  With her orange bill and feet she was quite becoming, for a duck. 

Lesley caught her and Miss 9 promptly announced she would do the carrying. Miss Duck was less impressed and left a deposit down the front of Miss 9’s shirt to let her know.  Still a half an hour later we were all back in the car and heading home. 

By the time we got home it was too dark to do anything but let Miss Duck out of the cage into the chicken pen and go to bed.  There were two topics of conversation: what would Scooter do in the morning and what were we going to call the newcomer. 

The latter question was answered first. At five o’clock the next morning – which happened to be a Saturday – Miss Duck informed us she was awake.  VERY loudly.  TMoTH leapt out of bed and raced downstairs grabbing bread, duck food and anything else he could think of to settle her down. 

It was a huge success.  Until nearly seven when she was hungry again.  Or thirsty.  Or bored.  Or something.  Whatever it was she let us know – loudly.  And Miss Duck had a name: Quackers.  As in “if she keeps that up she’ll drive us quackers.”

We decided the best idea was to let the ducks out before the neighbours lost patience and called noise control.  Scooter at this point began his routine of searching for Wobbles and my heart sank. 

But Quackers wasn’t going to be left alone by some heartbroken duck thank you very much. He was the only duck she’d found in this dreadful place and she was not letting him out of her sight.  Where Scooter went, Quackers went – sometimes so close she tripped over him. 

I sat down with a slice of bread and called Scooter. He walked up and stretched his neck out until his bill was touching my nose and I swear he was saying “what on earth is wrong with that duck?  Why won’t she leave me alone?” I offered him his slice of bread and nipped my nose, then climbed on my lap. 

Quackers, who clearly had never encountered such a thing, announced it to the whole world.  Loudly. 

Something tells me she’s going to fit right in.