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!

Rain Drops

After two steady days of rain, My Florida Backyard is looking a little soggy. The ducks are loving it though... and proving the old saying about water off a duck's back.

Extreme close-up!

To be honest, we're loving the rain as much as the ducks. The dry season is on the way, and we need to store up as much water as we can before it gets here. Plus, it's been a warm rain, and promises to be followed by several days of warm sunshine - what more could the plants ask for?

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!

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.