I have ducklings!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

9 of 'em!

We have a creek behind our house. The person who built the house and lived in it before us had dug out a section of the creek and made it into a fish pond, which it was when we moved in ~3.5 years ago. Gradually, it started filling in with sand, as tends to happen if you try to do things like dig fish ponds without really knowing what you were doing. Last spring, we had some pretty major flooding, and it blew out the little bridge that went over the creek, and tons o’ sand came through.

This year, we have a creek and a bridge. The bridge doesn’t actually go over the creek anymore, as the creek hopped about 3 feet north after the flood. There’s no more fish pond - the creek ranges from a couple inches to maybe 8 inches deep in the part that used to be the fish pond. I was in two minds over this; on the one hand, I liked having a bridge. On the other, the creek looks much more clean and natural.

Today, however, my two minds went away. Apparently our creek is now primo Mallard habitat. The pair that show up every year then take off before having chicks decided to stick around. And now I have NINE BABY DUCKS!

Sorry, no pictures. I don’t want to disturb them, and our camera doesn’t have a decent enough lens to take long-distance photos. But maybe this is a purchasing opportunity…

2

There is a creek/drainage ditch which runs between my apartment complex and the main road. While walking back to my apartment the day before mother’s day, I saw a Mama Mallard and 14 fuzzy little ducklings–I think, it’s kind of hard to count them when they keep swimming around. A few days later, I saw them again, most of the ducklings cuddled together on a spot of grassy land, but a few not. I was almost relieved that I couldn’t count them, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know if Mama’d lost a baby or two.

Haven’t seen them since. No pictures, due to lack of functional camera at this residence.

3

Steve Martin put out a book in the 1970s that comprised several bizarrely humorous essays, and one of them was What To Say When The Ducks Show Up.

I hope you were appropriately prepared.

4

Congratulations. If you see Tony Soprano hanging around, ask him how the series ends. :rolleyes: