Sad Duck Tales

We last saw mother duck on Wednesday, but she's not been back since that we can tell. Each night this week something - I suspect an opossum - ravaged her nest. This was the biggest worry since we noticed we had a duck. I wasn't too worried about mother duck, but the eggs. The nest area is sheltered from the weather, yet still very much in the open. Even if she was there overnight, and I don't think she was yet, there are critters in the area and I have seen opossum follow the contours of the house and would surely have struck gold here. Still, mother duck persisted for a few days until, sadly, most all her eggs were decimated.

We've been getting lots of rain this week, especially in the evenings and overnight into the mornings. Each rainy morning this week as I left for work I paused to take a look and a picture, and each morning there were more broken eggs. This last time, last night, seemed to get the last of them. Yesterday, Kate said she saw a female and two males at the end of the street by the creek.  (A duck ménage à trois?)  We can't be sure, but it may very well have been the same three ducks we had here.  I never did get a picture of the two male mallards, just mother duck and her nest.  Down by the creek they did a controlled burn along the banks almost two weeks ago which may have caused them to relocate here in the first place.  I'm sure the burn was much later than planned, as was our spring.  It's possible this was already their second attempt.

So this is most likely the last duck tale.  It would have been fun to see ducklings hatch in the nest and possibly watch them led down to the creek for their first swim.  Alas, perhaps another time.  The eggs may not have made it but some tulips that were munched by rabbits before spring finally arrived did.  I'm still glad spring is here, the good and the bad sad.