Aeons ago when TV came in two flavours and no colour there was a very popular programme called "What's My Line".  It's simple format involved a panel of "celebrities" trying to guess from mimed actions the occupation of members of the great British working public.  It crossed my mind just what the illustrious panel would have made of the activity I was engaged in this afternoon.

To start at the beginning.  On Friday at the Hot Pot I was approached by a young lady who asked me if I knew how to sex ducks.  Not something that you get asked on a daily basis and fairly unique as a chat up line. Casting a furtive glance in the direction of my wife who has a gimlet eye and ears like radar scanners I ventured that I did indeed know how to tell ducks from drakes when the breed in question is to all intents and purposes identical in both him and her.  Basically when young the only sure fire way is to listen for the quack.  In a duck it's a very definite quack in a drake it's more of an adenoidal squeak probably because the male generally can't get a word in edgeways. So this afternoon saw us at a farm further up the valley confronting a large flock of runner ducks which through foresight on the part of the owner had been confined to a stable.

This is where the fun started as the only real way to tell him from her is to pick up each bird  and encourage it to emit a noise by giving it a gentle squeeze.  There then ensued a scene from a silent movie with added sound (cacophony) as the three of us pursued ten ducks round the stable attempting to grab each one identify its sexual persuasion and place a red leg ring on the females.  Runner ducks live up to their name.  Whilst not the most stable creature on two legs they can show a remarkable turn of speed when they wish to and being very young they possess the wriggling ability of a greased piglet We quickly worked out that the best modus operandi was to get them cornered and quietly grab anything that came to hand.  This usually resulted in what may have been a polite enquiry as to what was going on or more probably runner duck for a stream of invective.  Whatever, it served to enable identification whereupon each identified animal was given a red leg ring if female and deposited in a pen next door.

We then decided on a spot of quality control which involved catching up all the females and returning them to the stable.  This left the supposed drakes all together.  These were encouraged to move about a bit so that they communicated and we could check for quack.  No quack just a lot of hissy fit so we got it right first time, reunited the whole flock and congratulated ourselves on a job well done.  We returned home with a new addition to the small family of runners that we traipsed all the way to Whitby to get not realising that our neighbour was breeding the damn things.

Just something else to add to my CV. Duck sexer to the gentry.

It's been fairly dry today so the river is now falling quickly and is probably already well past its best for salmon fishing.  A dry day is in prospect for tomorrow also, but rain may be with us on Tuesday so mid week could see some decent water in the river.  Watch this space.

Ian