young ducks

[ellenkushner]

It's early autumn. My heroine has been sent to the country, to a place that sure sounds like Normandy to me (lots of apple trees & streams & fields). Here's what I wrote a long time ago:

So I followed the stream into the woods instead, and found a little waterfall and a blackberry thicket with plenty of berries left, and a nest of young ducks (? well something more seasonal anyway).

Are ducks still young in early autumn? I just liked the way the words sounded, and the image - but if I'm about to make a fool of myself to people who know about ducks, can you suggest something else?

(NO ONE in my very erudite writer's group has taken up the challenge - various copies of the page have remained suspiciously pristine, despite my piteous little note in the text. I mean, if they knew the ducks were all right they would have said so, right??)

Comments

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

Ducklings are no longer in the nest when blackberries are ready to eat. Not ducks that I've ever seen. How about a cluster of frogs, instead?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Hee, hee!

[crowyhead.livejournal.com]

I think most ducks are almost full-grown in early autumn, since a lot of ducks migrate during the winter and the young ones would have to be able to fly along. That's my slightly educated opinion.

You could change it to adolescent deer, or just regular ducks, or something like that... :)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Did adolescent deer in my *last* novel ;)

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Ducklings are precocial -- they hatch down-covered, eyes open, ready to move out. They only stay around the nest for a few hours or days. After that, you'll see them following the parents in silly rafts across the pond or swarming over the grass.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Well OK maybe not literally IN a NEST, but they do sort of cluster together off in a sheltered corner of the water somewhere when they're young, right? cause I've seen 'em!

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

They'll hang out together until they fledge, really. Mostly they'll follow the parent ducks around -- or whatever they're imprinted on. You can be a mother duck if you want, just be the first moving thing they see after hatching....

[ewein2412]

My misspent youth in a punt informs me that young ducks are may and june, blackberries are september and october. what is up with your erudite writers?

You could probably get away with "young ducks" if you didn't mean ducklings and dumped them out of the nest. They could be a late brood (or whatever it's called) of young ducks, not quite old enough to have developed their sexually distinguishing plumage, and she can only tell the males by their curling tailfeathers? ah ha ha ha ha the things you learn while punting

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Now, why didn't I ever punt?

[ewein2412]

You haven't lived.

There is punting in Denver

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

You haven't lived.

So you're saying it's fun as well as educational?

(And what should I do in Denver? My heroine, she is in Elysi - I mean, not-quite-Normandy.
Perchance she'll see a DUCK; what think you?)

[ewein2412]

QUAAAAAACK [spluttering]

[rojomojo.livejournal.com]

I have ridden the Cherry Creek trial regularly and have never seen anyone punting. It would be neat and I would like to see it and try it sometime. rojo

[ewein2412]

you will have to track them down and post a report!

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Where my folks live in northern Wisconsin, there are always a few ducks who for one reason or another start a second batch very late in the year. I've seen fluffy-type ducklings as late as early September.

[auroramama]

Thank goodness, someone who has actually attached a date to the second brood of mallard ducklings. I've seen them here in LI too (though I bet Wisconsin is more like Normandy than this is), but it may have been as early as July.

They do huddle in little flotillas.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

[redbird]

What Kij said about Wisconsin is also true of mallards in New York City. My uneducated guess is that the ducklings that hatch late in the year are born to female mallards who for one reason or another failed to raise any ducklings to maturity in the usual season--and one reason for that is predation by seagulls, turtles, eagles,...

[redbird]

Yes, you can do it: a wet summer helps for the ducks.

Here's the USGS on the subject of summer breeding by dabbling ducks--which includes mallards, pintails, and ruddy ducks (as distinct from diving ducks): http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/autmrear/discuss.htm

Also, blackberries can ripen as early as July: I've seen bushes full of ripe blackberries in Wales (Hay and Swansea) at the end of July, and I gathered lots of wild blackberries in Amherst, Mass., while in a summer program that only ran through mid-August.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

And how can I not heed the advice of someone styling herself "Gnome Daguerreotype"?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

In Britain, which isn't that different a climate from Normandy, I wouldn't find it plausible. Blackberries are August, and by August ducks are back to the boring plumage and ducklings are nearly grown. Even if it's possible, it's so unlikely that it would jerk me out of the story. Why not just two ducks just sitting there, the way they do? Or moorhens. Moorhens are cool, and literature could do with more of them, peeping.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Jo, you're a writer - can I get away with ending that sentence, ". . . and a nest of young moorhens."? I've never seen a moorhen, I don't think. But it sounds pretty. (I certainly cannot change it to "...and found a little waterfall and a blackberry thicket with plenty of berries left, and a coupla ducks." - I mean, it scans and all, but it just isn't the right tone, ya know?

I *have* gone berrying down the lanes of Devon in September, and come back with full pails, though.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

No, moorhen chicks are earlier in the year as well.

I can't think of young anything you could find in autumn.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

OK, it came to me last night when I was trying to get to sleep. How about a pair of swans, sailing serenely by, followed by a clutch of half-grown awkward cygnets?

Blackberries start in August and are still there in September unless the rains have rotted them.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Oooh - thanks!

Wow

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Thank you all so very much for your time and expertise (and memories)! I now know much more about ducks (and even berries) than I ever expected to.

I guess I'll just have to decide when/where it's all taking place, and how attached to the rhythm of that sentence I truly am . . . .

Hello, Ellen

[intelligentrix.livejournal.com]

I found you by following the breadcrumb trail through various journals. I hope you don't mind if I add you to my reading list and pop in with a comment now and again. That introduction made, I am compelled to inform you that the following sentence: I certainly cannot change it to "...and found a little waterfall and a blackberry thicket with plenty of berries left, and a coupla ducks." actually made me burst into laughter. Thank you for it.

Re: Hello, Ellen

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Enchantée! Welcome.

No, no, I am quite used to making people burst into laughter . . . really! (smirks, but refuses to use emoticons, ever)