our ducks

We have a year round stream running through our property.

It is not huge, but any time of year is wider than I could ever jump over. In the summer the water is deeper and wider from irrigation runoff.

For a number of years we have had a pair of mallard ducks living on that stream. Sometimes there is two pair. I don’t know if they are the same pair or if they are the same two, even. Nature is not quite as clean and comfortable as we might wish.

Any way, each spring the hens lay a nest of eggs. I don’t know where, but they pull it off. Right now the chicks are swimming up and down the stream with Mother’s careful guidance.

The problem is that there are muskrat in the stream. The neighbors all have dogs and we have feral cats. When I mowed the lawn the other day, I found some little feathers. A cat had killed a bird of some sort.

Of course the cats, who look peaceful and even pretty, are a menace to all birds. We used to have a flock of quail that hung around our back acre. Not any more. We have squirrels, and I have never seen the cats and the squirrels go at each other. I am always amazed when the pair pull off the parenting ritual, and they do it every year.

I guess the upside is that we don’t have mice.