There are no ducklings

If you read last week about the duck that's been sitting on a nest for about a month...

...you should know that there will be no ducklings in my pond this year. Don't be too disheartened though, as the story is not nearly as sad as it was a couple of years ago.

***

You see, the lack of ducklings has nothing to do with this guy...

...nor any of his cohorts as far as we can tell. Not raccoons, nor foxes, coyotes, or anything else.

It seems that behind the lovely azaleas in bloom...

...the nest has been...

...empty!

Well, not empty in the sense that there certainly was a female duck sitting on it for weeks, even taking care to cover it with feathers and leaves whenever she left to eat.

But the nest has never contained any eggs, at least as far as we can tell.

She's been leaving the nest around dinner time for an hour or so, and the other day she never returned. The nest was completely undisturbed, and there was no evidence of foul play -- not even a shell fragment.

I suppose it's possible that something (raccoons?) carried off the eggs at some point, but it seems unlikely to me.

So we're spared any sight of carnage this year. Of course it means that the only fun thing I'll see swimming around the pond this year is...

...a cardinal?  (what the..?!)


Would a female duck really sit on an empty nest for the entire month?

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