The course of true love....

You all know me for a romantic old scrote, and I apologise if I have involved you emotionally in the love affair of my pair of Mallard. But I can't keep this to myself. This morning, HE was in the garden, but SHE wasn't.
I panicked. A lover's tiff? Had she finally succumbed to the charms of that muscular male from the other day? Or, heaven forfend, had one of our local poachers had her on his plate with baby new potatoes and succulent garden peas?
I tell you, mes potes, this kind of thing really takes it out of me. It's worse than cholesterol. But just now, kissed by the rays of the late evening sun, there was MRS Mallard, calm as you like, but MR Mallard was not with her.
I know, or at least I hope, this means that she spent the day on eggs, while he noshed in my garden, and that he is now on incubation duty in order to relieve her so she can in her turn get something to eat.
I hope so. I really didn't like the peas-and-potatoes scenario.