For fourteen years we have been blessed with a pair of mallards coming to see us and visit our water feature in April or May – we like to presume they’re the same pair, again and again.
Their routine seems to be the same, most years. They enter our back yard from the north of the house, waddle over to the pond on the east side, take a swim, and then waddle out the south side and onward. Some years they repeat this twice or thrice, and then they are gone till the following year.
This year (April 2021), we have been watching the drake stand guard while the hen goes for a swim.