And then there were four

Dont read ( or look) on if you are of  a sensitive disposition . 

The labels to this post are are "ducks" and "otter" . 

Have a guess what has happened if  'duck' and 'otter'  are in the same post.

You have been warned

So we went to lock the ducks up and there were only four of them. The one that was missing was one that  had a bit of a limp for a  couple of days . After a quick look round the adjacent  land there was no sign of the limping duck.

  

And on closer inspection there were quite a few feathers  scattered around the grass - certainly more than is usual

So I thought I'd better have a look along the burn. There were feathers in the water and stuck to the vegetation along the  burn.

And a bit further up the stream we found the (inevitably, by now ) ex -duck .

Dont read (or look) on if you are of  a sensitive disposition . 

( more detailed pictures on request if you are interested  in which parts of the duck the otter took )


According to 'tweb they normally hunt at night. This one - if in fact it is an otter that is doing this , but no-one has come up with an alternative suggestion- is hunting through the day , so its either very hungry, or very confident.
 I need to find out about otters and their hunting habits. We can put  wire mesh grids in the watercourses that run into the pond, but there is no point doing that if the animals are prepared to go  onto the land to go round any obstacle.
  We wonder if the limping was caused by an attempt from the otter a couple of days ago . And  this one was the slowest out of the water or away from the pond  when it came back to finish off the job.

Or we can fence the land either side of the stream  they are hunting in . But how far out from the burn do we need to fence ?
The side of the burn are overgrown, so   is there any point in cutting back the vegetation for a distance away from the pond ?
Is it worth it at all  or do i just need to sort out  one of the other ponds we have and move the ducks. It would be a shame because  this  pond has lots of fresh , running water.

So we will fence it off a bit, and not get any  more ducks  pending more information.