Life and death

 

The Peeps (with Cookie's tail in the foreground) June 2021

We are down to just one duckling (aka The Peep), after a predator attack.  The duckling shown above with the white spot on its wings was killed by a hedgehog last week, after it managed to climb into their little yard after dark.  I heard Cookie their mother hen making a terrible racket and dashed outside, as did the son, but we were too late to save it.  

Cookie was very brave and fought it off so that it turned against her instead, but it was heavier than her and too spiky;  she couldn't win that fight.  The son managed to get some garden gloves on and grab the hedgehog off of her;  it had a mouthful of her feathers as he took it away.  I have no doubt that Cookie would have fought to the death if we hadn't intervened.

Cookie and her remaining duckling were very subdued for several days afterward, and didn't come out of their house until yesterday.  I have no doubt that she has mourned her lost child and is wary of losing the other.  

I have adjusted the fencing around their yard;  I don't think a hedgehog can get in again.  I never thought they would be vulnerable to one--cats, rats and hawks yes, but it never crossed my mind a hedgehog would go for a duckling, or that one could even get into their little yard.  I guess we have been lucky all these years never to have lost any others this way and I will have to make sure it never happens again.