MALLARD: the cheery duck that saved me from a beating

I was feeding a couple of mallard ducks at my local pond the other day when it struck me just how much we take this most handsome of British birds for granted.

With the backdrop of the muddy pond water behind it, the bottle green head of the male seems almost as iridescent and stunning as a kingfisher's plumage.

The mallard is the commonest of our ducks and, fairly unusually for ducks, can nest in trees when the mood takes it.

Winter influx from abroad once boosted numbers to as many as 700,000 birds in this country with the average indigenous number put at 150,000 breeding pairs a few years ago.

But recently fears were raised that numbers are dwindling.

A researcher for the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust told me:"It's difficult to calculate mallard numbers compared to other ducks because they tend to live anywhere, not mainly on the big estuaries like other species. Gamekeepers also release them for hunting at various sites which complicates matters.

"Mallard often fly in from Russia and elsewhere during the winter. Populations fluctuate but I think we are seeing a slow but steady decline overall."

Seems a shame, if that's true.

I've always had a soft spot for mallard ducks as they inadvertently saved me from a beating many years ago.

As a boy, I used to trek through woodland which surrounded a lake brooding with almost Gothic foreboding.

In the centre of this dark lake was a small wooded island upon which a modest band of cheery mallard nested each year.

One particular day, myself and a friend sauntered through some bushes beside the lake to come upon our worst nightmare - a local gang of ne'er-do-wells slumped semi-naked around a fire after swimming al fresco.

With little hope of successful retreat, we simply had to grin and bear our misfortune as these older boys glowered at us menacingly and spat threats.

In a desperate attempt to mollify them, I inquired why they had a clutch of blue-green mallard eggs sitting beside the fire.

"Cookin' em. Gonna eat 'em," one of them sniffed, not in a very friendly way, it has to be said.

The path ahead was blocked by the gang so we sat down beside the fire.

It went quiet - worryingly quiet - as they glanced malevolently at each other and worked out what torture to inflict upon these interlopers.

Then one of the gang suddenly exclaimed:"Eh 'oop! T'eggs are bloody 'atchin'."

A mood of wonderment swept over the gathering and we were temporarily forgotten as some of the eggs did, indeed, begin to hatch from the heat of the fire.

Within a minute, at least three ducklings were just visible through their broken shells.

I fully expected the gang leader to chortle merrily before he swallowed the choicest duckling whole, complete with shell.

Amazingly, he didn't.

Even more amazingly, he dragooned the gang into plunging back into the lake, delicately holding the cracking eggs above their heads en route to the original nest.

"'Urry up!, 'urry up!," he ordered as the swimmers covered the 20 metres to the island.

Enid Blyton could hardly have contrived a sweeter outcome.

However, not wishing to ride our luck any further, myself and my friend slipped away.

Bunch of pansies, that gang, we decided - when we were safely out of earshot.

Sadly, I never found out if the mallard chicks survived, but at least we did.