Day 49. Friday 20th August 2010
It has rained a lot lately. This doesn't bother the ducks at all: they're outside whether it's raining or not. It makes no difference to them: the water rolls off their backs.
But Tom's feathers get wet. He's small and less-well developed than the others. He does the same things, except for swimming: he's reluctant to get in, except occasionally.
He can often be seen, when the others are bathing, standing on the edge of the pool and dipping his head up and down in the water, with a flick of his head as he comes up. Then he'll spend a lot of time preening, but mainly on his wet chest. You don't see him rub his preen gland then rub his head over his back like the others do.
Because he doesn't bathe himself properly he walks around much of the time with a muddy chest from where he's been rooting in the ground. They all root, but the others wash more. He'll probably need to bathe and preen properly to fly; to knit his feathers together, and have them stay dry.
Here's a short video (with fence!) of the other ducks' behaviour when there's fresh water in the pool:
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