Just as I came out of Sainsbury’s this morning I heard this quacking noise and there waiting patiently near the front door was a Mallard duck. Maybe its mate had gone in to shop! After a while it gave up waiting, quacked loudly and flew off.
That’s by no means the first time I’ve seen ducks around that area. I’ve seen and heard them walking the streets around Melbourne Ave and St James Ave a few times over the last couple of years. I do wonder where they come from? Maybe they are based in one of the ponds at Walpole Park and come to visit West Ealing a few times each year.
If anyone else sees them please do let us know.
David Highton
Normally a duck with chicks return to the same place for decades. Maybe years and years ago there was a pond outside where Sainsbury’s now sits. At St David’s Nursing Home on Castlebar Hill a duck with chicks turns up every year in the garden in a tiny fountain. One presumes there was a more extensive water feature there in the past. Every year St David’s get the RSPCA to collect the duck family and place it in water locally. Sadly, apparently, most years the ducklings don’t survive.
I saw a pair of ducks – mallards – again this morning. They were on the patch of grass on the corner of Melbourne Aven and Leeland Terrace.