What the deuce? Mallards make a mockery of my tennis

MALLARD ducks know a dodgy tennis backhand when they see one.

I was playing tennis after work in the centre of Tavistock this week and every bad stroke I played was met with volleys of laughter from the resident ducks which ply the leat just behind the courts.

At least it sounded like they were mocking me. And probably with good reason.

Ducks can make a quacking sound just like raucous laughter.

And they are not alone among birds that like to chortle.

The green woodpecker has a strident laughing call and on account of this was once known as the yaffle (Professor Yaffle from children’s TV series bagpuss was a green woodpecker).

Herring gulls also deliver an ear-splitting yelping laugh, the soundtrack to beach holidays and coastal living. (On the other side of the Atlantic there is even an American gull known as the laughing gull on account of the noise it makes.) But among the laughing birds, my favourite is the puffin. It is a comical looking species as it is, with its outlandish beak and plumage like formal wear. It also makes a kind of sarcastic slow-paced laughing sound, as if to say ‘ha-ha very funny’.

Unfortunately you don’t get many puffins hanging around the waterways of Tavistock, so I just had the endless snickering of ducks accompanying my game.

And they are a noisy and argumentative bunch – not the tennis players that is, but the motley mallards, zooming up and down the leat looking for handouts.

They bring a smile to the face when they time their quacking just right though. A drop shot straight into the net greeted with uproarious laughter, and double-faults met with hysterics. The Wimbledon pros never have to put up with this kind of abuse. Then again they are far better than me at tennis.