About 9 years ago we bought our
house, mainly for the backyard. The
house itself needed a lot of work, still does but hopefully will just right for
us, eventually. I’ve shown bits of the
yard before. Here’s a shot of the far
back of the yard, taken last fall.
Right in front of those two pine
trees is a small pond that we made a tiny bit bigger. Well I guess that tiny bit was enough as we
have had feathered visitors every year since.
This beautiful pair of mallard
ducks has visited every spring, starting from when they were juveniles and he
was first courting her. The first two
years there were actually two males vying for her affections. Eventually this guy won out and we didn’t see
the other male again for a couple of years.
They stay around just long enough for the babies to hatch and then the
whole family is gone. We never actually
get to see the babies before they all go down the stream behind us to the local
lake for the summer.
Last year the second male brought
his own mate and we had the two pairs staying for the spring. He haven’t seen the second pair this year, at
least not yet. These two just showed up
yesterday which is about a month behind schedule, which matches everything else
around here. It has been a slow spring
between last winter’s nastiness and the cold spring, we’re hopeful the second
pair will show up soon.
We have never tried to “tame” them,
though we do provide corn every day until they can find sufficient food on
their own. You can tell from his
watchful eye that we are tolerated at a safe distance. If we get too close they complain and move away. Even though we are familiar to them they are
still cautious and that’s what we want them to be.
We’re happy they found our yard to be a safe location
to nest every year and also happy to enjoy them while they are here.
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