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

[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....