Dick then

Dick van Duck is now four weeks old, and looking very different to the bedraggled tiny scrap who dug his way out of his egg and almost immediately into my cleavage and into our lives.

Since my last blog entry, he has continued to pack on the weight; each morning when we get up, we look to see just how much bigger he has grown overnight. The tiny, stumpy wings that looked so redundant at first, are beginning to hint at what they will become when fully grown and feathered.

Dick today

About a week or so ago, I noticed that the tiny feathers on Dick’s tail were being pushed out on the end of thicker, densely packed stalks. These did not look like the pinfeathers that our parrot used to grow, so I watched their progress with interest.

His front was soon covered in these thicker stalks, nestled amidst the baby fluff, and all around his sides he developed a sort of halo of fluff, standing out from his body on the end of more of the mysterious stalks. Each of the feathery ends was connected to the corresponding stalk by a minuscule

Something interesting is developing here

stiff section about the thickness of a human hair. When he was snuggled down on my lap or at my feet on the floor, he looked something like a little fillet of plaice (well, to my mind, anyway!)

As more and more of the stalks developed, the beautiful, silky down on his chest and tummy grew thicker and more densely packed, and it soon reached a point where finding the skin beneath the fluff was quite tricky. He seemed to be growing a pair of epaulettes above his wings as well.

Well, I think he looks like a fillet of plaice 🙂

Gradually, the original fluffy ends are falling off, or being preened off by Dick, with help from his ‘Mum.’ As the ends come off, the stalks below unfurl, and reveal themselves as pretty, pale cream feathers. It looks as if Dick is going to be a white duck, with one solitary tail feather that has a small flash of grey in it. His breast is looking quite lush, with thick, shiny, closely packed feathers, which feel a little like a cushion of moss. His wings are valiantly trying to catch up, but still have plenty of skin visible through the baby fluff.

But enough of Dick’s physical development. Armed with nothing much more than optimism, I am hoping that Dick will be bright enough eventually to grasp the basics of house- training. Thus far, there has been no little or no evidence that he has the slightest clue about restricting his bodily functions. He parps and poops his way around the house, leaving deposits of varying shades and consistencies, depending on what he has been up to. When he has been rooting about in my plant pots, the deposits are black, mud-coloured affairs. When he has been chasing and killing lumps of tomato, the deposits take on a reddish orange hue. Fortunately, they do not smell evil, and will be put to good use as fertilizer, but household consumption of kitchen roll and toilet paper is going through the roof. I have never known a creature to output so much and so frequently.  I tried speaking to him in a very displeased voice, tipping him up to show him the evidence of his misdemeanours and plonking him in his litter tray whenever he transgressed. I tried reading the signs and putting him into his tray just in time for him to poop and then showering him with lavish and actually quite nauseating praise. He enjoyed the plaudits, but his continued indiscriminate product placement suggests that I had just become good at reading his body language. I am unhappy on several levels about the idea of ‘Duck Diapers,’ so I have decided to let him get a little older and maybe slightly brighter, and then try again. In the meantime, my research into comparative absorbency of various paper products continues …

A rare occurrence – a cuddle without anyone licking or pecking at anyone else

Dick’s obsession with being with me continues unabated.  I was disturbed to note that his food bowl had hardly been touched when we went out for a few hours, leaving him and Poppy at home. As soon as he was confident that I had returned, he resumed his strange dance between the water and food bowls, paddling in both and reducing them to the yellow, sludgy soup he loves.

Dick’s favoured way of eating is to rootle through his ‘soup’ enthusiastically, shaking his head vigorously and spattering the walls and furniture. He stuffs as much as he can in a frenzy of enthusiasm, until his crop bulges so hugely that he can barely drape it over the rim of the bowl to reach yet more food. This could account for him weighing in today at 1050g, a whole kilogram heavier than he was when we first weighed him, a little over three weeks ago.

All is peaceful, for the moment.

When I go to water the plants in the street outside the house, Dick likes to come with me, and follows me at a pitter-pattering run, staying as close as he possibly can while I walk from plant pot to plant pot, and backwards and forwards from the outside tap to fill the watering can. I love to look at our shadows walking down the road, a strange pair of almost conjoined non-identical twins. Mine looks delightfully slim and tall, and his tiny ducky shadow, very close to it on the narrow street, cranes up to look at it, stretching its neck and tilting its head back so far that it nearly falls over.

He doesn’t fit in his bag any more, but I had to share this shot of him enjoying a drink at a local bar a week or two ago.

Because the neighbours have seen and heard Dick, he is becoming a minor local celebrity. Puri over the road reminisces that her mother used to have a house duck, but is somewhat vague about potty training details. Two or three of the older gentlemen have made incomprehensible, but obviously indulgent comments about el pato. Several of the children have asked me about Dick, and have listened politely when I have tried to explain the slightly eccentric basis for his name. I wonder if they have understood that ‘duck’ is English for ‘pato.’ They almost certainly have not grasped why a tiny Spanish duck should be named after an elderly American actor with the worst Cockney accent in the entire history of the universe.

This morning, I had the pleasure of listening to Puri telling my young friend Daniel that Poppy never tries to bite Dick because she is a very nice dog. While Puri was extolling her virtues, the dog of the blog sat on the front doorstep, her bottom on the top stair and her front paws on the step below, quietly watching Dick and me watering the plants, and looking the picture of well-trained, benevolent doghood. How gratifying!

A harmonious afternoon at home

Dick seems set to cause mayhem for a while to come. The mops and buckets have never seen so much action, and the roof terrace is looking more like a farmyard than a garden. The ironing pile is neglected, and there is a growing stash of old tea towels draped around the place to dry. I was reflecting this morning that I have in some strange way fallen into a kind of time warp. All of a sudden, I am once again trying to fit housework into brief spells when the baby is sleeping. I nip up to put the kettle on, and hear Dick crying out for me as soon as he realises I am not with him. I have a line of towelling drying on the washing line.

I have not yet resorted to booking a baby-sitter when we have to go out, but the way things are going, I might have to look into it.