A couple who hand-reared a day-old duckling before releasing her into the wild was stunned when she returned to their home six months later with 11 chicks.
Sixty-seven-year-old Phil Garner had been fishing with his son close to their home in Allerton Bywater, near Leeds, England, on April 1, 2021, when the tiny duck first scuttled up towards them.
For the next few hours, the family tried to find her parents before the grandad of seven eventually took her home, as the fishery manager advised them that she would perish if left in the wild.
“It was freezing cold that day and there was no sign of the mom,” Mr. Garner said.
Not wanting to lose the duck, Mr. Garner, who is an ex-freight driver, took the tiny mallard under his wing before bringing her back to his wife, Julia Garner, 66, in his coat pocket.
In their three-bedroom apartment, Mr. and Ms. Garner nursed the chick—which they named Freda—back to full strength, letting Freda roam around their front room, kitchen, and garden.
The couple allowed her to swim in a fiberglass pond they'd bought for goldfish, and it wasn’t long before she formed a bond with her rescuers.
“She’d either sleep in a box, by your feet, or under the coffee table,“ Ms. Garner said. ”But one of us had to sleep downstairs otherwise she started screeching and crying.”
The couple house-trained the bird to go to the bathroom on towels.
Freda was soon to be found sitting on Mr. Garner’s shoulder and on his table as he worked at his computer.
“She was loving,” Mr. Garner said.
After feeding her on a 40-pound sterling (US$51) worth diet of grubs, Freda flew the nest last October.
“It was a bit sad when Freda first went, but at the same time, it was a bit of a relief because she was hard work, very demanding,“ Ms. Garner said. ”It was a double-edged sword.”
However, at the back of her mind, Ms. Garner hoped the bird would return since they were told these birds “imprint on you for life.”
Ms. Garner said her husband of 16 years was undergoing agonizing treatment for bladder cancer when he first came across Freda.
She considers the duck Mr. Garner’s “guardian angel” as he was able to focus his energy on caring for her during that difficult period.
“I wasn’t right keen on my home becoming a duck sanctuary at first, but we all adapt,“ Ms. Garner said. ”And that year, Phil had three operations for cancer and 15 follow-ups. It’s been a tough time for him, and in some ways, Freda helped him through it.
So she was like his guardian angel. I think she was sent for a purpose.”
After she left last autumn, the couple believed that was the last they had seen of her, until she walked up their drive again on April 3 this year with her “boyfriend,” who the family nicknamed Fred.
They spent a few months together before Freda suddenly disappeared, leaving her “forlorn” partner to fly away without her. However, she emerged from a neighbor’s lavender bush two days later with a posy of tiny ducklings, that are now living in the Garner family’s garden.
“We looked out the front window one morning and saw the little ducklings waddling towards us,“ Mr. Garner said. ”We allow them in the fish pond in the front garden, but we’ve dug a separate pond in the back and fed them on cornmeal, worms, maggots, and Weetabix.
“You’ll hear them going ‘cheep, cheep’ when they want to eat or if the mother disappears, but they’re pretty quiet.”
Mr. Garner admits going from one duckling to 11 was chaos.
“It was like, ‘What do you do with this lot?’ They’re now eight inches long and as fat as butter – fluffy, very fluffy,” he said. “They need to swim, they need to wash themselves. So we’ve got tubs everywhere. The garden looks like a bomb site, but I’m not bothered.”
He expects the ducks will stay with them for a few more months but is prepared to rehome them to a nearby pond if they don’t go back to the wild.
“We expect her to fly off and go back to where she was before, and the ducklings will just follow her and do their own thing,“ he said. ”If not, there’s a good local fishing pool near us that’s got a fence all the way around it, which will keep out the foxes.”
