That sounds great.
When I was 8 or so, I started, like everyone with the wood ducks and mandarins, also had the more common teals, shoveler, red heads, a few of the tree duck (some of my favorites too by the way) Pintails, widgeon, pretty much any of the dabbler species are great beginer birds. Watch the shells, they can be a bit grumpy in mixed collections with smaller birds.
After you have been in it a few years and got the swing of it, then move on to the divers. I had them by around 12 or so, they are fairly easy to keep but do need much better water and higher protein feeds (floating catfish feed fixes that). They are a real pleasure to work with though, nothing like the goldeneyes, mergansers, and such. They are the tuffer ones to keep though, I'd start with the red heads and other pochards, then scaup, then the goldeneye, merganser and others.
If you ever have any questions at all, feel free to ask away, I will be glad to help. I also have a migratory /ornamental waterfowl thread in the duck section that may help you some too. It's in the "sticky" section at the top of the duck page.
