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

[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"?