The Ducks Are Fucked ~ Again .....

  Just a courtesy call, really. To let ye know I was down there the other day. Couple of Jackdaws picking over the last of the 'duck food' on the bank. 

 No sign of any ducks what so ever.

Mink trap's still there.

 Fucked if I know .....

Wot ~ No Ducks ....?!

 Now what?! Someone's dumped a length of old rain guttering along their bit of bank. It was obviously filled with 'Duck Food' and that's been liberally slung all over the place. 

 There's also a large patch of the stuff where they usually sat. Only, no sign of any ducks. I looked up and down the river. Nothing.

 Local Intelligence ~ in the usual form of my mate, Hugh, my Butcher ~ tells me one duck was seen waddling up the hill road. That road leads away from the river and off to god knows where.

 Mink trap's still laying there. Mid stream. I just don't know what to think anymore. Whole saga's just getting a bit surreal!

 More, next week. No doubt!
 

Nine Ducks ~ And Counting .....

  It's all getting a bit sad, and pathetic, now. Last week I reported how someone had put eleven ducks back on the little river, in town. Today they were, already, down to nine.

 I counted them as I passed by, on my way to the library. Coming back, I decided to photograph them for ye. But, even as I came along, camera out and the setting chosen, a woman crossed the little bridge above them and a moggy appeared from the car park behind. Pandemonium!

 Fucking ducks were everywhere! No where to go. No where to hide. About half a dozen jumped into the water, quacking their heads off. The rest just slapped their feet on the narrow bank which is all the home they have.

 I spoke to Hugh, my Butcher, about it. We spoke of how they have no shelter. No proper food source. No real hope. They're fucked ducks.

 

Eleven New Ducks ..... Here We Go Again!

  I checked the river today. Thought I was seeing fucking ghosts! There's eleven new ducks sitting there! I counted them. Should've took a photo, really. Just wasn't in the mood for it.

 And It's still there. Mid stream now. Getting boring. Only, the 'Automatic Feeder' has gone. Strange.

 Local Intelligence reports that the ducks were put there yesterday. Un fucking believable! Like sacrifices to the gods of Mustelia.

 I see this as a fascinating experiment. Something to be played out 'before our eyes'.

 I can't help wondering at eleven ducks. Surely, a dozen would be the usual? What ever; I'll look again, next week. There's still nobody trapping that stretch of the river. These ducks are just as unprotected as the last lot were.

 Ye know I've Got to say it. Forgive me, yes: They're Sitting Ducks!

 Watch this space for next weeks, probable, tale of woe!
 

It's Still There ....!

 A week ago, today, I found a mink cage in the river in town, yeah? Told ye all about it Below / Here.

  Back in town again, today. Have to have a look, don't ye? And, fuck me; There it is!

  Shifted and drifted a yard or two. Otherwise still much as I first found it. Can ye imagine that happening in england? I can't!

  Local people are now even suggesting I just " Bring it with me. " But, as I still explain to them; That's not the way I see things done, around here. It's not my property. I'm not touching it. Period.

 Saying that; It bodes damn well for me, doesn't it? Should I ever choose to set some traps of my own down along that river. No bugger'll interfere with those either, look.

  Sadly, that's not about to happen. Simply because I only go into town once a week. Can't go about, setting even killer traps, then just inspecting them once a bloody week! Some modern Gamekeepers might. I wouldn't.

 Makes me wonder what story lies behind all this though; Someone ~ his name's known ~ fenced the river in. Bought ducks to sit on it. There's even an automatic feeder there for them. 

 Then a mink came along and started helping itself to the ducks. So, someone bought a trap and set it. Now, all that's there is the feeder and the trap.

 The truth behind it will filter through to me, eventually. I'll tell ye, here, once I find out.

Ducks. Mink. Community .....

  I was in town today. I had a sack of stuff to take down to the 'Bottle Bank' bins, and so I had the taxi drop me there. Up around a half hidden Dog leg of a lane, in a corner of the town. The towns 'Amenity' point being discreetly tucked away, out of view.

 As always, my business there done, I really quite enjoyed the familiar, short stroll back to the road. The hundred yards taking me along beside the tree lined bank of the small river that pretty much forms the boundary of where I'm familiar with. 

 And, as always again, I found myself peering down onto the shaded, quiet water. The heavy stones. The turns of the banks clad in moss and grass. Thinking how I'd like to get a mink trap, or two down there, some time.

  No Pine Martens, I figured, would come this far into a populated area. But; Mink, I knew, would travel here. It was just a wonder that none had yet taken the tame ducks which someone or other had planted just down stream. On the more publicly visible stretch. By the bench.

 Not my ducks, of course. Not my river. Only 'my town' in as much as that it was the nearest place with shops for miles around. All something to do with the local council, I'd always imagined. And so dismissed it. None of my business.

  And that's probably why I didn't even register the lack of ducks today. I'd done my bit of shopping and had come back this way to cross one of the bridges over the river and pop into the library.

  Walking along the 'public' bit of the river ~ that bit viewable from the pavement ~ I was eyeing up the opposite bank, as ever, quietly salivating at the myriad wonderful locations for a mink to harbour - and be caught in a well placed trap.

  This shot doesn't show it. But, that grassy bank is full of clay pipe and stone slab drains. And, only thirty yards upstream, it's as sheltered and wild as the Amazon. For miles. Back into the countryside. Made for mink.

 That's when my eyes fell upon the trap. I knew at once what I was looking at; Though I could hardly comprehend it.

  Here it is, look, just as I found and photographed it. A brand new Cage Trap. No idea the make. But, it's a double door, treadle job. Mink sized.
  

 And there it was, laying on its side, mid stream. Doors fired. But, they'd failed to close completely. Ye might be able to make that out if ye look hard at the right end? Either way, any mink would've made it out. Gap's just the right size.

  In england, I suppose, I'd have been in that river without hesitation. That valuable looking cage would be in my store room as I write. But, it's not like that, over here. It wasn't my trap. End of. I took only a photograph and went on my way.

  Swift bit of local intelligence gathering gave me as much as I needed to know:  Some guy, whose name I forgot as soon as I'd heard it, seems to have 'donated' the ducks.

 He'd clipped their wings. Fenced them in, between two points. Presumably considered he was doing something for the community. Good for him.

  Then, when they started disappearing, one after the other. Night after night? I suppose he'd gone out and bought that bloody trap somewhere. Plonked it down and ..... well, I don't know. But, there are no more ducks left. Just that trap, laying on its side. Mid stream.

  Perhaps I should've just gone in there and fished it out? Doing no fucking good laying there. Did no good, badly set. Unsecured. Ready to get washed away in the floods of a couple of days ago. 

 Thank fuck no hapless creature got caught in it. He'd have found it, eventually. And he'd have simply dropped the cage into deeper water and gone for a pint.

 My point is though ~ as I said to Steve, the taxi driver, as he brought me home; 'Why didn't someone think to call me?'. 

Those ducks were a 'community' thing. I'd have dropped some tunnel traps and sorted the mink out. Not as if I'd have had my hand out for a payment. I'd just have been doing my bit for the community. 

 I don't know ~ yet ~ who put those ducks there. But, I know his heart must have been in the right place. Then the mink inevitably, came, look. He tried to protect his ducks. 

 Dunno. I'm going to make some enquiries. I'd like to see some tame ducks back on that little stretch of the river. Wing clipped. Fenced in. No doubt giving at least one bloke a lot of pleasure.
  Only, this time? Protected by a string of well sited and maintained traps, up and down stream from them. A 'Community' thing.