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It seems to me most people enjoy nature and animals here, so I've got some pictures I wanted to share. A Mallard duck has taken it upon itself to nest about 5' away from our front door. I'm starting to take photos of it to see the progression of the eggs and such.

Just Sittin'

Different angle

In relation to the front door. The nest is under the green bush on the left of the pic

I've got my eye on you

Picture of the egg

Another egg picture

Ducks lay an egg every day or two until they have a full clutch (usually 8 to 15) of pale olive-green eggs; only then will the mother start to sit on them. Having camouflaged plumage, the female does all the incubation and looking after the young. It takes the eggs about 28 days to hatch from when she starts sitting. The female turns each egg every day. When they hatch, she will soon lead them to a nearby body of water. The new ducklings are able follow the female into the water within hours after hatching. The father takes no part in caring for the eggs or young

*quacks*

Nice, cant wait to see the babies!

^_^




[hr width='40%']"I'm alright, I'm alright
It only hurts when I breathe"

Aww how cute is that! And what an odd place to pick to brood? Can't be a high traffic area?
She's beautiful and I wish her the best, please keep us posted on how she goes

right by the house lucky you

Like was said keep us updated!

Angel Eel

Can't be a high traffic area?

Actually its quite high traffic. We get two newspapers delivered to our porch ever morning. Then we have to get the newspapers. So thats 3 people within 2' feet of the nest every morning. Then after that my mom pretty much has two friends over every morning for coffee. Theres another two people passing the eggs 4 times in the morning. Then there is any other random traffic, like water plants, mowing the yard, or just going out the front door.

On average I'd say people pass it at least 8 times per day, sometimes more. Other days probably less. Certainly not an ideal nesting area.

Wow, I just want to thank you for posting these!!! I hope you'll take more pics & post them as you are able to!

Our backyard is certified with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and we have a small pond that interests canada geese, wood ducks, american black ducks, & mallard ducks, but they don't seem to want to "nest" anywhere where we have noticed anyway.

One problem may be the amount of snapping turtles that seem to frequent our pond...we hate them though...they are dangerous considering we have 5 children. We only have 4 acres and the children are more important to us!!!

Anyway, I love the pics & am amazed they choose so close to your home to nest. Tell us more about where you live...is it near a pond? In a developmental area with many other homes, secluded?

Anyway, I love the pics & am amazed they choose so close to your home to nest. Tell us more about where you live...is it near a pond? In a developmental area with many other homes, secluded?

I live in a very developed area. I'll post pictures of the whole area later, but we are surrounded by nothing but other houses and roads. There is a pond about 1/4 mile from our home, but you can't even see it from our house because of the houses between the pond and our house. Which seems rather far to me as far as nesting is concerned, especially if she plans to lead the baby ducks there after they hatch. Since she nested I've been doing some research on ducks, and was surprised to see that living in or near water is in no way necessary for a ducks survival. They simply enjoy the water, but as far as living is concerned it is not necessary at all.

In fact, here is a satellite photo of the area I live in, the red dot is not my house, but I live in that first cul-da-sac View from the top

Last edited by lil_mikey69 at 19-Apr-2005 11:45

Another Hoosier! (ok, so I'm just pretending to be a Hossier here at school... but I wouldn't have a problem staying here later in life)

Ducks are cool.

(the geese are the evil water fowl )

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Any new pictures and/or reports???????????????

that seems like kinda a strange place for a duck to nest under a bush like that , but hey, that's urbanization for you, last year we had 2 familys of chuckers nest along the south side of our house in the rasberry bushes

Daka&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;