We know spring has sprung here at Ard Jerkyll when we start to see ducklings, and sure enough we’ve had several different sibling groups brought in over the past few days.
But please don’t assume that a lone duckling, even a forlorn looking one, has been orphaned or abandoned – it’s likely that its parents and siblings will be close by, and the best course of action is to observe the young bird for as long as possible (ideally for at least an hour). If it is in immediate danger from a predator or passing vehicles, carefully relocate it to a safe place nearby if this is possible. It is vital that the parents should still be able to see and hear their offspring, and so it needs to be placed out of danger but near to where it was found
However, if the duckling is clearly injured it will need to be taken to a vet for treatment, before it comes to Ard Jerkyll.
When they arrive at Ard Jerkyll young ducklings are kept in heated incubators (co-incidentally, the collective noun for ducklings is an ‘incubation’), and although they can swim from day one of hatching they are at risk of drowning, and so they have to be supervised when they are in water. For this reason they must be given drinking water in a very shallow bowl or special drinking container. When they are old enough they are moved to the outdoor aviary pens where they can develop their swimming skills in large water troughs before being released back into the wild.
Ducklings do well when they are reared in captivity, not least because they are fairly self-sufficient as soon as they hatch, but other species of bird are more of a challenge because they need regular hand-feeding. Members of staff take these birds home with them so that they can be fed from dawn until dusk, as they would have been by their parents, and we are given invaluable support by the team at Manx Wild Bird Aid to help us to do this. They are usually able to take the smaller birds from us (sparrows, robins, blackbirds, etc), and get them to a point where they can go into an outdoor aviary before being released.
Hatchlings sometimes fall out of their nests, and every effort should be made to put them back again if possible. Fledgelings, like ducklings, often seem helpless but they need to spend time on the ground whilst they develop the final stages of their flight feathers. The ‘watch and wait’ advice applies here too, and usually the fledgling’s parents will appear before too long.