This is a little story about Whoppo. For those of you who don't know Whoppo, he is my Muscovy drake, he has had a battle with me for the past month or so, every since he came to maturity and decided that he was the controller of the chickenyards. We have had a few talks and he has finally turned around and respects me. He is a very interesting bird, a beautiful, beautiful drake and we have this beautiful understanding now. He is boss and I am boss, we both share this duty of the chickenyards. But we both do it in different ways. He was pretty intimidating to me before, but now I just understand him and he understands me. Let me tell you, Muscovy drakes certainly do like to talk alot, and he speaks to me almost constantly. I am mindful of this character, he always has my attention when I am around him. I think that he could have some pretty big mood swings.
Every time I come to his chickenyards, when he sees me, he immediately comes to visit me, hissing all the way there, and then lets out that big mouthful of air that sounds like a windbag blowing off. He makes me laugh, he is a funny dude and I am glad that we decided to weather out his aggressiveness, that I no longer feel is a threat. Yeah!!! He is very obviously a great protector of his flock of 5 ducks. AND....he is big, he is about 3 times the size of the ducks, don't know how he doesn't crush them to pieces when he has his way with them. Poor girls.....
So the antics that Whoppo now performs when he comes to say hi and physically greet me are identical all the time. 100% identical. I spend alot of time in the chickenyards working, observing and sitting while I observe. One of my favourite places is down near the ducks' pond, sitting on a piece of wood. This is a perfect seat to watch, take pictures and enjoy the antics. Richard (the tom turkey) is always so nosey he has to come and check out what I am up to too. With both his girls gone broody, he is a little bit on the lonely side, so has taken me to be his friend. Right, he also really likes to hang out with the Khaki Campbell ducks too, they are his pals and partners in crime. Where they are, you will find Richard.
Right, so back to Whoppo. I will sit on the piece of wood and watch him. Of course, when his eyes meet mine, he comes over.....hissing and waggling his tale. That is something he really likes to do too, is waggle that tail (can you call that bunch of feathers on his bum a tail?, must be a certain name for it, enlighten me, someone).
First off he fluffs up the feathers on his head, he can make these feathers almost stick straight up.
And then when the hissing has stopped and the air blows out of his lungs his head feathers relax
The next motion is him when he puts his head on the ground and lifts his head back up and ruffles his head, neck and body feathers
Then after he has done these three antics, he comes over and begins to nibble on my shoe, sock, boot, or whatever he can nibble on, and then off he goes.
That is his typical greeting when I am sitting down. I have watched this over and over, identical each time.
Whoppo and 3 ducks eating stuff in the muck
One of the older Muscovy ducks is sitting on 13 eggs right now. She was a great mother last summer and she is going to be the same this year too. She is so funny, in the morning when I let the critters out of the barns, she runs out as fast as she can, grabs some food (I always have a treat for them when I let them all out), she has a bath in the water, drinks a whole bunch and then runs back in to sit on her eggs. She began sitting on them Easter Sunday, so they should be hatching out pretty soon, the little baby ducks are so ding dang cute!!! Have the most beautiful day that you could ever think of. Cindi