Which Came First?

I went out this evening to give some water to some newly planted Tampa Mock Vervain and coneflower in my butterfly garden - and found a real mess. Something had been digging like crazy all around my duranta bush, knocking over one of my toad houses and kicking up a bunch of dirt and mulch.

As I began to straighten up the mulch, I discovered what had made the mess - at least to start with.

We assume these are duck eggs. However, we found only 7, and this is a pretty small number. I'm afraid that after the eggs were laid, something else discovered them. They were scattered around the area when we first found them, instead of all being together in a nest. It's likely that a neighborhood dog or cat, or even crows, had found and dug up the nest, possibly even scaring the mother away, since she was no where to be seen.

However, we are ever the optimists, so we gathered them back up carefully and placed them together, covered with a light layer of mulch, just in case the mother duck decides to return. We'll keep our eyes open, and update the blog if anything changes.