Singer Birdy says she felt like a “successful mother” after nursing a duckling back to health during lockdown.
The 24-year-old moved back in with her parents in the New Forest for most of 2020 after recording her forthcoming fourth album Young Heart in Nashville, Tennessee.
Birdy, who found fame aged 14 after releasing a cover of Bon Iver’s song Skinny Love, spent her time fine-tuning the album and watching Netflix, before discovering an abandoned duckling in a neighbour’s pool.
But after months of nursing the duckling back to health, it flew away for good.
She told the PA news agency: “She became more and more wild.
“She learnt to fly but she used to come back.
“I would call her and she would come flying into the garden and we would feed her.
“And then one day she didn’t come back.
“It’s really sad, my baby.
“She is so sweet and she used to follow us around but she wasn’t sure who was her mother.
“She would see me and my mum and my sister and just be like, ‘Which one do I follow?’
“It is amazing though, I am so happy that she has become wild.
“I feel like a successful mother.
“She has integrated back into the wild.”
Birdy said the process of the duckling leaving was “gradual”.
She added: “Every day she would go a bit further.
“Then we would see her with the other ducks and would call to her and she just wouldn’t look at me.
“Like, ‘Don’t embarrass me, I don’t want to associate with these humans’.”
The singer, whose full name is Jasmine Lucilla Elizabeth Jennifer van den Bogaerd, is preparing to release an album inspired by a recent heartbreak.
She admitted she found it surprising people listened to her music to deal with their own break-ups.
She said: “I always find it really strange when people say, ‘Your songs really helped me get through this really sad time’ because when I was heartbroken I couldn’t listen to anything.
“I didn’t want to hear any sad songs.
“I was like, ‘No way’.
“I couldn’t listen to any music.
“I always find it really amazing that people find that it helps them get through stuff.
“I love that.”
Young Heart by Birdy is out on April 30.