Update #2
6/27/12:
A house filled with children got in the way of that post getting up last night. I still claim no ability to be funny or to edit my own work. However, now I’m un-medicated and just in pain. So, weee! Here, goes…
Update #1
6/26/12:
So, I wrote this Friday evening after it happened. But then I didn’t have a chance to even half-assedly edit it myself until now. I warn you, this is not edited to the level I am capable of—it is really different to go over your own work. Plus, I have this piece that I wanted to post as my second blog post introducing the various beings in my house. However, that is not written, and this is. Kind of. Whatever, my meds are kicking in, thank goodness. Here you go.
**************************
Many things happened today, but I think the most important was the duck herding. No, I don’t live on a farm, no I wasn’t at a farm—I was home in my front yard. This is my front yard:
.JPG)
I live in a neighborhood built in the early fifties; most of the homes (or at least 70% at this point, there’s been a bit of a change in the 6 years I’ve lived here) are still occupied by their original owners. Some of the other houses are owned by the descendants of the original owners. If there were not a “country club” (read: shooting range) at the end of my street, it would probably be the most serene of streets. As it is, we get drunken rednecks speeding up and down the road at all hours. Luckily, this only happens periodically. Well, on most weekends, and then the random, sadly unpredictable, special event (because who doesn’t want to get married at a redneck’s shooting range on a weeknight?). When we begin to hear many gun shots, I send up a silent wish that no one’s dog gets out into the road at the wrong moment. Or their child. And now, I’ve gone all macabre instead of funny. I need to learn the skills of my favorite bloggers (Here’s another plug for thebloggess.com and hyperboleandahalf.com, if you haven’t been to them, it’s cool, go now. They are so much better than I am. But! I have a story with ducklings, so you should totally come back.)
So, back to the duck: I think this must be a first time mom. I checked, the closest water to me that t duck could live in (so not counting swimming pools and the like) is about a 3rd of a mile away. And that’s if you just make a straight line between the duck and the water. It does not account for fences, or yards with dogs, or roads. But if she knows where that water source is, and I have to assume she does, she may already have a path mapped out. However, that water is super-di-duper-di nasty. I would like this little duck family to end up at a nice clean park where the threat of predators and pollution are both a little lower.
About a month ago, just about the same time as my husband stopped living in our house, I noticed a duck fly away from the tall grass growing around the dogwood tree in my front yard. I’d call that area “an untended garden,” but that would be stretching the term beyond the breaking point, I fear.
So, I’m walking towards my driveway across the yard from my front door and a duck freaks out and flies off from basically feet away from my face. And I’m like, what the fuck? That’s weird. Hmmm.
I suppose that I should interject that about a foot over in this same never-tended-should-be-a-garden area last summer, there was a nest of baby bunnies that we uncovered while weeding the hideous mess for a party. So, the idea of something living in these grasses is not totally foreign to me. I decided to check, and sure enough, there was a freaking duck nest. In my front yard.
In the first-time momma duck’s defense, there had been an abnormal amount of rain in the previous weeks, so maybe there was some water closer by that she didn’t realize would be temporary. But given the feral cat population of the neighborhood (which is a whole separate post because I am very passionate about TNR programs—someone remind me to talk about that sometime) and the number of housecats that the jerks that live around here allow out (and again, that’s for another post, but in short: don’t let out your domestic cats, it is a bad idea for everyone), I just don’t see this as a good spot for a duck nest. But what do I know? I’m no duck.
Over the next few days we noticed that she was still laying more eggs. I think there ended up being eight total, but I haven’t wanted to mess with them enough to count for fear of her abandoning her nest. However, she didn’t follow what the internet says she should have done, and began incubating immediately instead of after laying all of them. Now, there’s no chance of them hatching on the same day—there’s at least 4 days going here.
Every day, she sits on the eggs, being a good momma duck, but every evening she goes out to eat. Which of course makes my silly brain have cartoon images of a duck at a restaurant with her other mommy-friends, complaining about what a rough day she’s had. But I don’t think that other people’s brains work like that. (Although, if anyone wants to draw me that, I would find it infinitely amusing!) But it does make it sound like a fairly good stay-at-home mom gig! God, I wish I were funny.
Yesterday we were in the worst of a massive heat wave for this time of year. It was over a hundred at various points. A friend came over to help me get my house ready for the addition of three more humans (two of whom are children.) It’s gonna be insane as we get adjusted, y’all. So, I’m trying to do as much prep work in terms of making space. Plus, since I am probably getting kicked out before too long, I might as well begin the packing process.
When my friend and I were working on something outside around 11 a.m. we noticed that the duck was panting. Now, I don’t know about any of you, but I am not a bird person, per se. This might be contradicted by my various bird-related stories (remind me to tell you about the goose), but I am just not that into birds. I prefer fuzzy animals to all others. So, I had no idea if bids panted when hot, but most creatures do, so I figured that she was trying her best not to die of heat stroke. At this point, her sitting on the nest was probably keeping it cooler because she was blocking the direct sunlight.
I had to do something. I know, she’s a wild animal. She isn’t my problem. I’m overwhelmed enough, yadda, yadda, yadda. Whatever. I can’t see an animal suffering, and possibly dying, and not help. So, my friend (who we’ll call S so that I don’t have to keep saying “my friend” and she can still maintain her anonymity if she’d like) and I decided the best thing to do would be to wet everything down. That way, as the water evaporated, it would cool. At least slightly. First, we tried a light spray landing over the duck (I’ve seen her sit through thunderstorms, so I knew it wouldn’t hurt). But we realized it was just too damned hot.
We set the hose on the wish-it-was-a-garden uphill a bit, so to speak, from her. It is a mound, more or less, with the tree as the center point. The idea being that if she’s suppose to have her nest in the swampy areas near a pond or river, and has been fine through massive thunderstorms, a good soaking would do no harm. And would hopefully do a bit of good and cool things down.
Also, I have a leak in my hose. We tried to tape the crap out of it with duct tape, but it just keeps sprouting new little leaks. So, I put a baby pool under the leak and let it fill up. I know, I’m a freaking genius, y’all.
I think it helped. She didn’t die. However, she also lost an egg. I don’t know if something attacked, or if she realized an egg had died and rolled it away from her nest. When I noticed it (well, actually S noticed when we were leaving for her to drop me off at my couples’ counseling session. Fun times.), it was a good four feet from the nest, and had been cracked open on one side. I looked at it and touched it to roll it over, accidentally crushing the other side when I did. It looked almost like a cooked egg inside, but not right. It didn’t look like a dead duckling. It was very gross, though, I can tell you that.
My theory is that it basically got cooked by all the heat and so momma duck pushed it out of the nest.
I was so worried that the water may have made it worse, but that is unlikely, and today (I am so freaking excited I need to exclaim in the middle of the sentence!) there were ducklings! So some lived, at least. I have yet to see anyone use the baby pool, but the number of birds I saw in bird baths and the like yesterday leads me to believe that it’s going to be enjoyed by some bird, at some point. Maybe my goose will come back. Oh, I still haven’t told you about my goose! I’ll tell you later, I swear. But you might have to remind me.
All that was background for the real story I wanted to tell. Which was that I was herding ducks across my front yard today.
I’m so worried that they are going to be smished en route to the gross creek. So, I had a plan. I would put up the puppy x-pen that I have around the nest. It looks like this:
The plan went that the momma duck would be able to fly in and out and the babies would be safe from harm. So, Brian and I attempted it. The first problem was, although the diameter was a few feet across, the momma duck seemed spooked or unable to fly into it. She flew over it a few times. She wandered around making very angry sounds. But never got into it.
The second problem was that the spaces between the bars were far too big to contain newborn ducklings, so after about 10 minutes, they just wriggled out.
So, we failed.
And traumatized some ducklings in the process.
But, we did discover that not all the eggs have hatched yet. I’ve read and been told that ducks tend to abandon the nest, bringing their ducklings with them to the water rather quickly after hatching. So, when I saw ducklings, I hopped into action and tried to protect them immediately.
The ultimate plan, of course, being to catch them all and release them at a pond. However, I wanted to keep them safe until I could do that. My dad had me convinced that she’d probably take off with her cadre of babies tonight.
So, after the ducklings escaped, we immediately removed the pen and basically stood way back. But by this time, she and the babies were wandering into the road on the far side of my front yard. This was bad. This is one of the most heavily traveled sections of road by wild, drunk rednecks in the neighborhood. So, I looped around and cut her off, herding her by my presence (and some arm waving) back into the grass.
(See, I got to the herding eventually.) Then she started to head to my neighbors’ back yard, where lives a dog that can hop fences fairly easily. So, I had to redirect again.
I felt like a boarder collie. Meanwhile, Brian stood at the edge of the road to keep that from seeming to be an appealing route of escape.
Eventually, we got her and the little ones (Who she kept stepping on, by the way. That can’t be good, right? Even for ducks? I feel like there is a universal don’t-stand-on-your-children rule throughout the animal kingdom, but maybe I’m wrong.) close enough and since they were heading towards the nest, we decided to hide around the corner of the house and not bother her.
That’s when I found this:
I had no idea that was growing there! Anyone know what it is? If you know, and are the first to tell me, you get a prize. Although, I don’t know what that will be. So, that prize may just be my adoration. Or a higher quality shot of the flower in question? Or maybe I’ll get all crafty and make you an award.
At any rate, we watched until we were sure she was headed back to her other eggs in the nest and then ran away inside through the backdoor.
I think we will call in help tomorrow. There are a number of wildlife rescue groups that I really should have already contacted to see if I should even be concerned. I’m sure they can tell me if I should bother containing the babies (I’m thinking a chicken wire fence around the entire mound? And then when they’ve all hatched, trapping them and transferring them to a nice safe pond). I would just toss a relatively heavy blanket over momma, so she doesn’t fly away, shove her in a crate like I would an angry feral cat (except I know to grab around the wings vs. the base of the neck like with cats, because I’m just that clever), and then catch each baby (with gloves on). I figure if I bring them all to a nice pond somewhere, they have a much better chance of not being smished or eaten. I hope.
We’ll see what the professionals say. That is if any of them are open tomorrow.
**************************
Update #3: She and the hatched babies took off the next night. The other eggs had been layed later, and also may have been damaged by the heat wave. Now, I have to get rid of rotting duck eggs. Fantastic. On a positive note, I have seen no smished ducks. And I looked. I'm going to assume the best and hope that doesn't make us all asses.
6/27/12:
A house filled with children got in the way of that post getting up last night. I still claim no ability to be funny or to edit my own work. However, now I’m un-medicated and just in pain. So, weee! Here, goes…
Update #1
6/26/12:
So, I wrote this Friday evening after it happened. But then I didn’t have a chance to even half-assedly edit it myself until now. I warn you, this is not edited to the level I am capable of—it is really different to go over your own work. Plus, I have this piece that I wanted to post as my second blog post introducing the various beings in my house. However, that is not written, and this is. Kind of. Whatever, my meds are kicking in, thank goodness. Here you go.
**************************
Many things happened today, but I think the most important was the duck herding. No, I don’t live on a farm, no I wasn’t at a farm—I was home in my front yard. This is my front yard:
.JPG)
I live in a neighborhood built in the early fifties; most of the homes (or at least 70% at this point, there’s been a bit of a change in the 6 years I’ve lived here) are still occupied by their original owners. Some of the other houses are owned by the descendants of the original owners. If there were not a “country club” (read: shooting range) at the end of my street, it would probably be the most serene of streets. As it is, we get drunken rednecks speeding up and down the road at all hours. Luckily, this only happens periodically. Well, on most weekends, and then the random, sadly unpredictable, special event (because who doesn’t want to get married at a redneck’s shooting range on a weeknight?). When we begin to hear many gun shots, I send up a silent wish that no one’s dog gets out into the road at the wrong moment. Or their child. And now, I’ve gone all macabre instead of funny. I need to learn the skills of my favorite bloggers (Here’s another plug for thebloggess.com and hyperboleandahalf.com, if you haven’t been to them, it’s cool, go now. They are so much better than I am. But! I have a story with ducklings, so you should totally come back.)
So, back to the duck: I think this must be a first time mom. I checked, the closest water to me that t duck could live in (so not counting swimming pools and the like) is about a 3rd of a mile away. And that’s if you just make a straight line between the duck and the water. It does not account for fences, or yards with dogs, or roads. But if she knows where that water source is, and I have to assume she does, she may already have a path mapped out. However, that water is super-di-duper-di nasty. I would like this little duck family to end up at a nice clean park where the threat of predators and pollution are both a little lower.
About a month ago, just about the same time as my husband stopped living in our house, I noticed a duck fly away from the tall grass growing around the dogwood tree in my front yard. I’d call that area “an untended garden,” but that would be stretching the term beyond the breaking point, I fear.
So, I’m walking towards my driveway across the yard from my front door and a duck freaks out and flies off from basically feet away from my face. And I’m like, what the fuck? That’s weird. Hmmm.
I suppose that I should interject that about a foot over in this same never-tended-should-be-a-garden area last summer, there was a nest of baby bunnies that we uncovered while weeding the hideous mess for a party. So, the idea of something living in these grasses is not totally foreign to me. I decided to check, and sure enough, there was a freaking duck nest. In my front yard.
In the first-time momma duck’s defense, there had been an abnormal amount of rain in the previous weeks, so maybe there was some water closer by that she didn’t realize would be temporary. But given the feral cat population of the neighborhood (which is a whole separate post because I am very passionate about TNR programs—someone remind me to talk about that sometime) and the number of housecats that the jerks that live around here allow out (and again, that’s for another post, but in short: don’t let out your domestic cats, it is a bad idea for everyone), I just don’t see this as a good spot for a duck nest. But what do I know? I’m no duck.
Over the next few days we noticed that she was still laying more eggs. I think there ended up being eight total, but I haven’t wanted to mess with them enough to count for fear of her abandoning her nest. However, she didn’t follow what the internet says she should have done, and began incubating immediately instead of after laying all of them. Now, there’s no chance of them hatching on the same day—there’s at least 4 days going here.
Every day, she sits on the eggs, being a good momma duck, but every evening she goes out to eat. Which of course makes my silly brain have cartoon images of a duck at a restaurant with her other mommy-friends, complaining about what a rough day she’s had. But I don’t think that other people’s brains work like that. (Although, if anyone wants to draw me that, I would find it infinitely amusing!) But it does make it sound like a fairly good stay-at-home mom gig! God, I wish I were funny.
Yesterday we were in the worst of a massive heat wave for this time of year. It was over a hundred at various points. A friend came over to help me get my house ready for the addition of three more humans (two of whom are children.) It’s gonna be insane as we get adjusted, y’all. So, I’m trying to do as much prep work in terms of making space. Plus, since I am probably getting kicked out before too long, I might as well begin the packing process.
When my friend and I were working on something outside around 11 a.m. we noticed that the duck was panting. Now, I don’t know about any of you, but I am not a bird person, per se. This might be contradicted by my various bird-related stories (remind me to tell you about the goose), but I am just not that into birds. I prefer fuzzy animals to all others. So, I had no idea if bids panted when hot, but most creatures do, so I figured that she was trying her best not to die of heat stroke. At this point, her sitting on the nest was probably keeping it cooler because she was blocking the direct sunlight.
I had to do something. I know, she’s a wild animal. She isn’t my problem. I’m overwhelmed enough, yadda, yadda, yadda. Whatever. I can’t see an animal suffering, and possibly dying, and not help. So, my friend (who we’ll call S so that I don’t have to keep saying “my friend” and she can still maintain her anonymity if she’d like) and I decided the best thing to do would be to wet everything down. That way, as the water evaporated, it would cool. At least slightly. First, we tried a light spray landing over the duck (I’ve seen her sit through thunderstorms, so I knew it wouldn’t hurt). But we realized it was just too damned hot.
We set the hose on the wish-it-was-a-garden uphill a bit, so to speak, from her. It is a mound, more or less, with the tree as the center point. The idea being that if she’s suppose to have her nest in the swampy areas near a pond or river, and has been fine through massive thunderstorms, a good soaking would do no harm. And would hopefully do a bit of good and cool things down.
Also, I have a leak in my hose. We tried to tape the crap out of it with duct tape, but it just keeps sprouting new little leaks. So, I put a baby pool under the leak and let it fill up. I know, I’m a freaking genius, y’all.
I think it helped. She didn’t die. However, she also lost an egg. I don’t know if something attacked, or if she realized an egg had died and rolled it away from her nest. When I noticed it (well, actually S noticed when we were leaving for her to drop me off at my couples’ counseling session. Fun times.), it was a good four feet from the nest, and had been cracked open on one side. I looked at it and touched it to roll it over, accidentally crushing the other side when I did. It looked almost like a cooked egg inside, but not right. It didn’t look like a dead duckling. It was very gross, though, I can tell you that.
My theory is that it basically got cooked by all the heat and so momma duck pushed it out of the nest.
I was so worried that the water may have made it worse, but that is unlikely, and today (I am so freaking excited I need to exclaim in the middle of the sentence!) there were ducklings! So some lived, at least. I have yet to see anyone use the baby pool, but the number of birds I saw in bird baths and the like yesterday leads me to believe that it’s going to be enjoyed by some bird, at some point. Maybe my goose will come back. Oh, I still haven’t told you about my goose! I’ll tell you later, I swear. But you might have to remind me.
All that was background for the real story I wanted to tell. Which was that I was herding ducks across my front yard today.
I’m so worried that they are going to be smished en route to the gross creek. So, I had a plan. I would put up the puppy x-pen that I have around the nest. It looks like this:
 |
| (I hope I don’t get in trouble. Really, I’m giving them free ad space, so they should be pleased, but I don’t really know how copyright law works.) http://www.cheappetstore.com/Dogs-Puppies/Dog-Kennels-Crates/Dog-Exercise-Pens/MidWest-Pet-Exercise-Pen-36H-X-24W-Black-261591/ ] |
The plan went that the momma duck would be able to fly in and out and the babies would be safe from harm. So, Brian and I attempted it. The first problem was, although the diameter was a few feet across, the momma duck seemed spooked or unable to fly into it. She flew over it a few times. She wandered around making very angry sounds. But never got into it.
The second problem was that the spaces between the bars were far too big to contain newborn ducklings, so after about 10 minutes, they just wriggled out.
So, we failed.
And traumatized some ducklings in the process.
But, we did discover that not all the eggs have hatched yet. I’ve read and been told that ducks tend to abandon the nest, bringing their ducklings with them to the water rather quickly after hatching. So, when I saw ducklings, I hopped into action and tried to protect them immediately.
The ultimate plan, of course, being to catch them all and release them at a pond. However, I wanted to keep them safe until I could do that. My dad had me convinced that she’d probably take off with her cadre of babies tonight.
So, after the ducklings escaped, we immediately removed the pen and basically stood way back. But by this time, she and the babies were wandering into the road on the far side of my front yard. This was bad. This is one of the most heavily traveled sections of road by wild, drunk rednecks in the neighborhood. So, I looped around and cut her off, herding her by my presence (and some arm waving) back into the grass.
(See, I got to the herding eventually.) Then she started to head to my neighbors’ back yard, where lives a dog that can hop fences fairly easily. So, I had to redirect again.
I felt like a boarder collie. Meanwhile, Brian stood at the edge of the road to keep that from seeming to be an appealing route of escape.
Eventually, we got her and the little ones (Who she kept stepping on, by the way. That can’t be good, right? Even for ducks? I feel like there is a universal don’t-stand-on-your-children rule throughout the animal kingdom, but maybe I’m wrong.) close enough and since they were heading towards the nest, we decided to hide around the corner of the house and not bother her.
That’s when I found this:
 |
| Pretty! |
I had no idea that was growing there! Anyone know what it is? If you know, and are the first to tell me, you get a prize. Although, I don’t know what that will be. So, that prize may just be my adoration. Or a higher quality shot of the flower in question? Or maybe I’ll get all crafty and make you an award.
At any rate, we watched until we were sure she was headed back to her other eggs in the nest and then ran away inside through the backdoor.
I think we will call in help tomorrow. There are a number of wildlife rescue groups that I really should have already contacted to see if I should even be concerned. I’m sure they can tell me if I should bother containing the babies (I’m thinking a chicken wire fence around the entire mound? And then when they’ve all hatched, trapping them and transferring them to a nice safe pond). I would just toss a relatively heavy blanket over momma, so she doesn’t fly away, shove her in a crate like I would an angry feral cat (except I know to grab around the wings vs. the base of the neck like with cats, because I’m just that clever), and then catch each baby (with gloves on). I figure if I bring them all to a nice pond somewhere, they have a much better chance of not being smished or eaten. I hope.
We’ll see what the professionals say. That is if any of them are open tomorrow.
**************************
Update #3: She and the hatched babies took off the next night. The other eggs had been layed later, and also may have been damaged by the heat wave. Now, I have to get rid of rotting duck eggs. Fantastic. On a positive note, I have seen no smished ducks. And I looked. I'm going to assume the best and hope that doesn't make us all asses.
