It takes a village

My neighbors and I have combined to bring a duckling into the world, and more importantly, into my pond!

I've posted about the ducks before, how they hang out in my pond but then walk across the street to my neighbor's bird feeder. The deer and squirrels spill the seed and the ducks benefit. Another neighbor texted me about three weeks ago saying that ducks were building a nest in one of his planter boxes. One with a pond, one with the food, one with the nesting site.

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The nest was well hidden, and the eggs were covered with feathers whenever the mother left (to visit the pond or feed or get some "me time"):

I learned that mallard eggs hatch in 24 or 25 days, so I knew that this week would be the end of her sitting. Yesterday morning though I saw her sitting on my neighbor's lawn -- a strange spot indeed. My neighbor saw this:

A few broken eggs, and also one partially eaten duckling carcass. I'll spare you seeing that.

We were downhearted from that, but later in the morning I heard quacking at the pond and to my great surprise and joy saw that one duckling had survived!

The ducks really tear up the plants in the pond...

...and now mom is teaching the youngster how to do it:

Sigh.

It was difficult to get them both to pose in a good position at the same time...

...until they got out of the water:

I've actually not seen the little one climb out yet, so I'm not sure exactly how it manages.

It just does whatever mom does though, and things just work out.

I'm really hoping that this duckling survives. I already had to chase two different cats away from the pond's edge today -- mom's quacking alerted me to their presence.

Fingers crossed that you'll be seeing many more duckling posts in the near future!


Morning note: I heard quacking at 2:00 AM, and this morning I did not see the little one. The male was back though -- first time I've seen him in weeks -- so maybe they'll try again? 

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