Wordless Wednesday: Shy Guy

Wordless Wednesday: Somebody's Baby

Fuzzy Fuzzy Cute Cute

It's baby duck season again! There are proud and protective mama ducks everywhere, with little lines of babies following behind.

It's a sure sign of spring in My Florida Backyard!

Your Smiling Face

Whenever I see ducks in My Florida Backyard, I can't help but notice that they seem to be smiling at me. This always brings to mind the classic scene from A Christmas Story, where The Old Man explains to the kindly Chinese cook that the family is laughing at the beautifully cooked duck laid out in front of them because, "It's smiling at me!" (That scene doesn't end well for the duck.) At any rate, take a look at these duck grins and tell me you don't see it too!

Someone to Watch Over Me

It's baby duck season, and the best mothers are those who know how to protect their offspring. They keep them close along the lake banks, find them safe places to sleep at night, and watch over them always.

This mallard mother and her babies stopped by My Florida Backyard this afternoon. We threw out a little cracked corn, as we sometimes do for duck babies, and the mother stood watch while the babies dined.

 
We see many duck mommies with only one or two babies who survive to this age, but this mother duck clearly knows what her job entails. She has six babies well on their way to maturity, and it won't be long before they're on their own. Well done, Mother Duck!

The Babies on our Block

The first official duck babies of spring have arrived - and boy, are there a lot of them!

By our count, this proud mama duck has TWENTY babies! They're at least a few days old, judging by their size, so she's been doing a very good job protecting them from the predators that ravaged last year's baby ducks.

We'll keep you posted on their progress!

Babes in Toyland

It's really not the right season, but this mama duck apparently got some babies for Christmas!

A few more pictures for your Christmastime entertainment:

Somehow, I can just hear this little guy saying, "God bless us, every one!"

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.

What's Going On

It's been a hot and dry week in My Florida Backyard, with nothing really unusual going on. A few items of note:

A local muscovy mamma has some babies. Each time I see her, she has fewer babies than she did before, but of course I can't resist catching some pics of the fluffball babies.

Although I'm trying not to get attached this time around, baby ducks are darn photogenic. If you want to see more, check out my new Duckling Gallery on Flickr.


While I was snapping these pics (and getting a fire ant bite in the process - when will I learn?), these white ibis wandered by. No one really seemed to mind.




Also, we noticed this weekend that, as we expected, the snowbush caterpillars have done their work on the snowbush in the butterfly garden. It's been basically stripped to the bone (twig?) and the remaining caterpillars are eating anything they can get their hands (legs?) on.

This non-native bush is about done for, and that's OK. I plan to replace it with a native butterfly plant - what will I choose? In the meantime, we seem to have created our own small white-tipped black moth colony as the caterpillars morph into their final state - I see literally dozens in the air each day.

And that's what's been going on in My Florida Backyard lately. We look forward to some rain returning soon!

And Then There Were None

The last of the mallard ducklings has been taken by the Hawkwaffe. We watched as, one by one, they were picked off by red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks. In spite of the best efforts of the duck mama and her gang of loyal duck protectors, and the survival skills quickly learned by the babies themselves, in the end, it's a hawk-eat-duckling world, and there's not much we can do about it.

We're really going to miss watching the fluffballs in My Florida Backyard.

Rest In Peace, baby ducks.

Dig It

On a sunny day in May, this Florida soft-shelled turtle wandered up into My Florida Backyard from the lake. She visited a few times throughout the morning, and in early afternoon, finally decided the time and place were right.



So, she began to dig.


In slow steady strokes, she used her strong hind legs to dig a deep hole in the sandy soil. She worked for nearly 20 minutes, laboring under the hot sun.

Then, for about 10 minutes, she sat fairly still, though if you watched closely, you could see her straining and shifting from time to time. My research tells me she laid "9 - 24 brittle, white, spherical eggs". When she finished, she scratched in the soil again to cover them, and then returned to the lake with unbelievable speed.

We knew what would happen next, although we did try to fight it off by covering the site for a few minutes and then watering it down to wash away some of the smell. But the crows had been hovering the entire time, and the turtle eggs didn't really have a chance.


In a few minutes, the nest hole was all that was left, crawling with fire ants. It's surprisingly deep and narrow, although sadly empty.

Some people say there are no seasons in Florida, but springtime here in My Florida Backyard seems to bring out the same behavior you'd see in wildlife anywhere this time of year!




P.S. For those who've been following the saga of the baby ducks: we're down to two now, after a red-tailed hawk captured one on Wednesday. The remaining two are holding strong, though, and we have high hopes for them!

I Will Survive

Welcome to part three of our continuing stooo-ry*:

Quacks in the Backyard:
Drama Amongst the Ducks

Today's episode begins when I head out into the backyard to pull a few weeds, snip some blanket flowers to bring inside, and perform other menial tasks. As usual, when I open the screen door, ducks assault me from all sides, begging for corn. I throw them a cupful so I can get on with my work.

When I turn back around a few minutes later, I find that the mallard ducklings have added a new trick to their repertoire - they're now able to climb up the bank from the drought-depleted lake and make it into my backyard to enjoy the treat with the grown-ups!

As I watch them feed, I hear that familiar sharp cry from above - the hawk is back yet again. But now I learn why these three are still around after their brothers and sisters are gone - they got mad survival skillz!

All the ducks immediately fly down to the lake. The little ones don't have much in the way of wings yet, but they move just as fast as their elders, skittering as fast as they can go. Once in the water, the three ducklings immediately duck under the surface as the hawk swoops in for the kill. Half a second later, the hawk flies off, pursued by adult ducks and several mockingbirds (presumably also protecting a nest nearby) and it doesn't seem to have anything in its talons. Still, I can't be sure.

I watch the surface of the water. Up pops one baby duck, followed by a second. I hold my breath... and the third duckling surfaces. I'm sure their little duck hearts are beating like crazy, but they had survived another attack. They live to swim another day.

I can't be sure these guys will continue to outsmart the hawk. But I'm getting awfully close to deciding to give them names and a special place in my heart. I hope they survive to beg me for corn and eventually bring their own babies to My Florida Backyard, where they will always be welcome.

Check out part 1 and part 2.

UPDATE, April 29, 6:20 p.m. - A red-tailed hawk just captured one more of these little guys, again right in front of my eyes. Honestly, folks, this is starting to break my heart.

*You have to say that in your best Muppet Show "Veterinarian's Hospital" voice.

You Oughta Be in Pictures

We're ready for our close-up, Mr. DeMille!




















But wait, there's more!


P.S. In case you were wondering, these are indeed the same ducklings I wrote about the other day. If you're doing the math, we've gone from 11 down to 3. Sad, perhaps, but that's the way it works in nature.

Circle of Life

I was out on the porch this morning hanging some clothes out to dry when I realized there was a mallard mommy and a whole mess o' baby ducklings swimming in the lake.


For a non-maternal person, I'm pretty darn fond of baby anythings*, so I took a few moments to snap some pics and count the babies - eleven fuzzballs swimming by their duck mommy. I could see they were starting to lose their yellow down, so they are probably a week or so old by now. They still tended to swim in a group hunched close to their mother, and rarely ventured away to look for their own food.

I marveled for a while at their adorableness, and wondered whether perhaps I had seen these little ducklings being conceived. For some reason, our backyard seems to be a real hotspot for duck mating. I won't include a picture here, but suffice it to say that's it's rather like a fistfight in a bar - disgusting and violent, yet you can't seem to look away. Anyway, last month, there always seemed to be a pair (or more!) of ducks "knowing" each other in our backyard (as they say in the bible), and I wondered if I was seeing some of the results today.

Well, I had chores to do, so I threw some cracked corn to some other ducks nearby and headed back inside. One of our favorite resident ducks, Blanco, along with a few of his gang, stopped by for a late morning snack.

Not long after this, I heard the most horrific quacking and, for lack of a better term, duck shrieking drifting in the windows. We hear a lot of crazy duck noises in the backyard, but this was really fierce, so away to the window I flew like a flash to see what was the matter.

A red-shouldered hawk had come a-hunting.

Each time the hawk swooped over the ducklings, the mother flew into the air, flapping her wings and making a terrible racket. Soon, Blanco and his cronies were joining in the fight. They joined the mother in swimming around the babies, shooting into the air and defending these little puffballs with all their might. When the hawk pulled back to reassess, the mother herded her little ones to the shore while her guards swam sentry nearby.

The battle lasted, off and on, for nearly 20 minutes, with the hawk taking breaks in a nearby tree to wait for the best advantage. I watched the life being threatened in My Florida Backyard in fascination, as horrified and mesmerized as I was by when that very life was being created.

The hawk won, of course. One duckling was caught and eaten in a pine tree nearby. Then the attacks resumed, until a second unwary baby was snatched in the sharp talons. The hawk flew off, perhaps taking the prey to its own nest nearby to feed its own babies.

And that's the circle of life, folks, and not in the cute Disney way. If you're going to love nature, you have to respect it all, even when it seems hard to watch. British author P.D. James probably said it best:

“A man who lives with nature is used to violence and is companionable with death.
There is more violence in an English hedgerow than in the meanest streets of a great city.”

The mother mallard eventually swam away with her nine remaining babies, no doubt to the face the same challenges over and over again until those who survive are old enough to begin their own families. The circle continues unbroken, and that's a good thing, for when it's broken, nature ceases to exist.


*I was once heard to exclaim, upon reading a National Geographic article on the birth of planets, "Awww, baby planets!"

Ooh, Baby Baby

It's that time of year! The first of the ducklings have arrived. After several months of catching mating ducks in My Florida Backyard every time we turned around, we spotted the first babies of the season today. By my count, there were seven ducklings following their muscovy mama through the waves of the lake on this very windy March day.


Welcome, babies! May you live long and prosper.