You never see a dead duck

Ever hooked a duck?

They don't like it.

If the water isn't too deep, they dive down to take your bait off the bottom and hook themselves.

Yep caught a few, had a Glebe once Thankfully I only use barbless hooks so all returned unharmed other than a few ruffled feathers.........literally

Tbf, you rarely see dead sparrows, blackbirds, crows...

I presume it's because they get eaten by other wildlife.

True...........foxes no doubt the wildlife's undertakers

You've been there then dan.

I used to fish a pool for carp.
Because I used floating bread, of course the ducks would be sitting waiting for every cast to get the bread.
I only had to hook one and start to reel it in and the rest would go berserk.

A soon as I unhooked it and let it go, it would shoot off across the pool followed by the others and they'd all clear off for the day and leave me to fish in peace. 

Job done.

the other one is seagulls either trying to catch free offerings being catapulted out or diving in after boilies

I mainly river fish now so the wildlife is far more wary than on the commercial lakes

Had a water vole come up to me at a lake once so I threw him a bit of groudbait which he/she duly eat. Obviously I wasn't feeding said creature quick enough so it just jumped in my groudbait bowl and started helping himself. Right beside me

Oh yeah birds, I forgot about them swooping down.

Swans are to be avoided, they'll ruin your days fishing.

I used to feed them bread until they cleared off burping.

On a recent visit to the river Wye we had to fish above a large group of swans. Apparently they pull up the weed to feed which floats downstream and wraps round your line. Bad enough atm contending with the leaves