First, I must say, ducks are very difficult to photograph. Even more difficult than chickens and maybe even more difficult than active toddlers (I hardly consider Bracken a toddler anymore, but I still clearly remember those stages that were really challenging to get a non-blurry photo of him.) I’ve been meaning to post here about our ducks for awhile, but getting pictures of them was another story. They move around a lot. They’ll get fairly close to us when we bring food, but they still keep a bit of a distance and are somewhat weary of us. When I bring the camera out and aim it at them, it seems to make them more nervous and they usually start heading in the opposite direction from where I want them to be. (The last batch of pictures was taken through the fence, zoomed in a bit, while I tried not to get the fencing in the way of the lens. Being a little farther away with the camera made them less nervous.)  Plus I wanted to take a picture of them together, side by side, to show you the difference in their coloring. I guess focusing on getting a good picture of each of them one at a time would have been much easier. Anyway, at this point, with the looks of them, I think it’s safe to say that we have one guy and one gal. We’re really pleased about that because we’ll have fertilized eggs if we ever choose to hatch some duck eggs in the future and raise more ducklings here. (Although not sure that we will at this point, we’re pretty happy with the duo, but it’s nice to know we could if we wanted to.)  Those two are pretty much inseparable. They’re friends with the chickens too, but they stick to each other most closely. We named them long before we knew their genders. I named the girl Fennel (I also named one of our goats that, once upon a time. I love that name) and my mom named the male with the darker coloring (at the time and as a duckling, the biggest of the bunch) Rhubarb. So, these days, Rhubarb and Fennel can be found together in the chicken yard, hanging with the chickens, chasing off the rooster (yes, they really do that when he gets too rough with the hens!) or splashing in their pool. The ducks seem to really care about their fellow chicken friends. They’re protective of them and do their best to keep the rooster in check and if a hen hasn’t come into the coop at night, they will wait outside the coop for her until she comes. They don’t go inside the coop until they know everyone is safe and sound and accounted for in there. If we come to close the coop door at night and see the ducks are waiting around outside, we know a hen hasn’t gone in yet. It’s pretty sweet how they do that. All three of us really love having ducks. They only take a tiny bit more time to care for than chickens since I like to put fresh water in their pool every few days, but hardly more time at all. One day last week it was really hot outside and I was watering some plants near their yard. Fennel came over to where I was watering and started drinking some water that came into their yard from the hose. I gently lifted the water a bit to see if she would like to go in it. She did. I lifted the hose up and she just stood there, happily standing still while the water rained down on her. It was so cute to watch. The next day she let me do the same thing. They get so happy every time I give them fresh water in their pool and I love the way their little tails wag. I never knew before that ducks did that, but they surely have some adorable tail wagging to express their happiness.