Start by familiarizing yourself with the Recharge API documentation. This will provide you with the necessary endpoints and authentication methods needed to extract data. Make sure you have access to the API keys and understand the data structure you will be working with.

Prepare your local development environment. Install Python, as it provides easy access to HTTP requests and data manipulation. Also, ensure DuckDB is installed in your environment for later use. You can install DuckDB using Python with the command: `pip install duckdb`.

Use Python's `requests` library to authenticate with the Recharge API. Write a script to connect to the API using your API key and fetch the data you need (e.g., customer data, orders, subscriptions). Here's a simple example of how to get started:
```python
import requests

api_key = 'your_api_key'
headers = {'X-Recharge-Access-Token': api_key}
response = requests.get('https://api.rechargeapps.com/customers', headers=headers)

data = response.json() # Parse the JSON response
```

Once you have fetched the data, process and clean it to ensure it is in a suitable format for insertion into DuckDB. This might involve converting data types, handling missing values, or restructuring nested JSON data into a flat structure. Use Python libraries like `pandas` for efficient data manipulation.

Ensure DuckDB is properly configured in your environment. DuckDB can run SQL queries directly from Python. Create a new database file where you will insert the data. This can be done with the following Python commands:
```python
import duckdb

con = duckdb.connect('recharge_data.duckdb')
```

Use DuckDB's SQL capabilities to create tables that correspond to the data you fetched from Recharge. Define the schema of the tables based on the data structure. For example:
```python
con.execute('''
CREATE TABLE customers (
id INTEGER,
email VARCHAR,
first_name VARCHAR,
last_name VARCHAR
)
''')
```

Finally, insert the processed data into DuckDB tables. You can use the `pandas` DataFrame `to_sql` method to insert data directly into DuckDB tables:
```python
import pandas as pd

# Assuming `data` is a list of dictionaries or a DataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame(data['customers'])
con.execute("INSERT INTO customers SELECT * FROM df")
```

By following these steps, you can efficiently move data from Recharge to DuckDB without relying on third-party connectors or integrations.