Hi! The chained part makes the body/tail go out. you start at the head and add on the chained bit to make it longer.

Guys the chain makes the ducks tail. The duck is not two circles. When you do the chains and work back into them as a part if the round it will make the duck look like a duck. It’s more of a trust the process.

Had the same issue, ended up cutting 6 inches of loose yarn, then weaved through front loops by inserting the needle under only the front loop of each of the 8 remaining stitches, going from the inside toward the outside then through the middle, then pulled tight and weaved.
To start the other segments I used standing single crochets.

you begin with the head

I am having trouble visualizing where the body is attached to the head,

Thank you so much

Hi! Thank you so much for catching this – you counted correctly, that was a typo in rnd 6, a repeat was missing. Here is the corrected round:

Rnd 6: 3 sc, inc, sc, (yellow: 2 sc, inc, 3 sc, inc), 3 sc, inc, 3 sc, inc, sc, (black: 2 sc, inc, 3 sc, inc), 3 sc, inc — 40 sts

That works over the 32 stitches from rnd 5 and gives you 40. Sorry for the confusion and the frogging! I’ve updated the pattern.