Mallards: mother and ducklings

I've just back blipped Thursday and Friday. Busy few days...

Here they are! The mother mallard and her four ducklings. My blip yesterday was one of the paler ducklings: two of the four are pale (yellowish), and two are darker (which is my mental image of a typical mallard duckling...).

Aw: I took this after the dark one clambered up onto its mother's back (dislodging the pale one which slithered off accidentally and ended up on the left of the mother's tail ), and promptly fell asleep snuggling up to her face... Was cuteness training involved here?

Potentially sad news though: I'm trying to remain positive, but today there was no sign of "Angel Wing" on Eagle Pond... His 7 siblings were all present and accounted for, but he was not anywhere to be seen despite my looking in all the most obvious places (and some less obvious). I hope he's just hiding somewhere; 'twould be so tragic (well, naturally brutal) if he was not only malformed, driven away early, and then ostracised, but then also got munched by a fox or something... Grrr. I hope I see him soon.