My life has been changed by a duck! I’m not kidding. A momma duck has taken up residence in the front of my home. She located and built her nest in a corner about ten feet to the right of my front door. She’s been parked there for about three weeks now and the exterminator man (no, not a duck exterminator - a bug guy) told me a week ago that she would probably be there for another month. Take a look at the picture below and you’ll understand why we’ve taken to calling her “Octo-Duck Plus Two”. Yup. Ten eggs.
When we first saw the nest, we noticed that every time we opened the front door, momma-duck immediately left the nest and flew away. This of course left the soon-to-be duckings exposed and unattended. Not wanting to endanger them or make their mom mad, we decided to stop using the front door. (Luckily, I noticed that there are other doors in the house that lead to the outside.)
It worked fine for us, but not so much for the unsuspecting delivery guys who both showed up at the front door and said they almost had heart attacks when the well-camouflaged duck suddenly and noisily flew the coop. (She a big girl - lately we’ve been considering changing her name to “Kirstie Alley With Feathers”).
So now we play the waiting game. But not so over at Jackie’s house… Right, Jackie?
Jackie here…
About a week and a half ago, I walked out my front door to go get the mail. (I’m expecting a large sum of money from a nice man in Nigeria who e-mailed me a while back). But I digress… When I opened the door there was a VERY LOUD noise up and just to the right of my head and some straw-like stuff falling on my hair. Slightly frightened, my first thought was to run back in the house and call my dad. NOT. (He’s really good at a lot of things - but I wouldn’t exactly call him a”first-responder”).
Instead, I just looked up and much to my surprise, saw a beautifully sculpted bird’s nest sitting atop my front porch light. Obviously, Momma-bird wasn’t too thrilled by my arrival. So, I quickly and quietly went back inside and, realizing that I had other doors that lead to the outside (must be genetic), I decided not to use the front door for the duration.
But before long, curiosity got the better of me. I went outside through the garage, and as steathily as a member of SEAL Team 6, I approached my front porch, armed with my cell phone. I hid in the bushes until the bird took off. Then I made my move. With the nest up too high for me to see what was inside, I held my cell phone over my head and took a couple blind shots. Then I ran (like a chicken) back through the garage and into the house to see what I’d gotten.
And there they were… 4 incredible blue robins eggs. (I guess that’s where the name for the color “Robin’s Egg Blue” came from. Who knew?)
Now flash forward to this morning. I looked out the front window and noticed that the momma-bird was flying back and forth with something suspiciously worm-like hanging from her beak. A-ha! The stork must have made a delivery to the robin!
I went back into Special Op’s mode, grabbed my camera and got some video. It’s only 14 seconds, but I think it’s pretty cool!
On behalf of Dad and me… have a great weekend and we’ll see you back here Monday!