Annual Visitors of the Feathery Type

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.