I literally had to leave the camera on the beach an entire month for the duckies to finally get used to the thing and come closer!

Also, I suspect they're less careful because the mating season is in full swing and they're more concerned with trying to have a good time than avoiding weird objects sticking out of the water 🙂

Look around you, there are lady and gentlemen mallards all around. The gents sport a green head and white streaks while the ladies have a mottled beige plumage.

Duckies having dinner on the beach. The level of the lake has risen so they find plenty of food on the shore. Also, the mallards sport their green plumage now: somebody is looking for a good time 🙂

The injury, which left the duck's beak hanging at an angle, was treated at a centre near Ringwood

Just today I took a trip to what we only know as The Duck House, which is a house or a farm or something located along the MABDR route the environs of which are always chock-a-block full of ducks (and geese). I won't get into any more specifics on the location than that, but if you've ever had occasion to pass by you'll know. Otherwise, it's probably not nice to encourage internet strangers to stampede directly to somebody's private abode to wave cameras around at them.

So anyway, I showed up and waved my camera around. Nobody ran out and chased me off with a shotgun or anything, so I call that a success. Here are some of the results.

You've, uh, got something on your nose, there.

Okay, this one is not a duck. But I'm including it anyway.

Just look at that snoot.

Seriously, this place is just full of ducks.

I wouldn't know where to begin with what to do with them all.

No weekend is complete without a dose of duckies.

I set up a 360° camera in the morning on the beach where the colony of mallards usually comes to rest at the end of the afternoon, to capture a video in the middle of their group, hoping they'd get used to having the camera in their midst. Yet even after a whole day, the mallards still felt something was wrong with that unusual object there and elected to lounge on the neighbor's beach instead. But the camera still got a few visitors 🙂

Mallards busy preening to waterproof themselves.

The younglings have grown and gotten fat, but it's late in the season and there aren't many blueberries left - mostly because they ate them all already 🙂

The mallards are the reason why we don't pick very many blueberries in the backyard at the end of the summer. But that's okay: we decided the blueberries are for them - as long as they leave the currants and the gooseberries in the garden alone 🙂

Random captures from our lakeside camera in which the duckies had the courtesy to stay in frame so we can enjoy watching them up close.

Spotted around 3am while the sun was rising over our misty lake.

The mallards are done gorging on blackberries in the backyard and going back onto the lake.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49065678

Great Lakes region, USA. July 4th 2026.

Look at these adorable mallards! They were such cooperative subjects too. My heart is melting.

Lady mallard getting ready for the night.

Group of mallards half a mile away, spotted by our lakeside camera

We have a group of lady mallards currently summering on our lake that likes to rest on our beach at the end of the day, then goes hide in the bushes in the forest to nest during the night. I knew roughly what time they like to come in the afternoon, so I waited for them and captured their rest stop with our lake camera.

This little guy was all alone on the lake some 600 yards away. The water was still enough that our lake camera could track it fairly easily.