When I moved to the houseboat I heard that the neighboring floating home two houses away regularly had mallards nesting in their river float's garden boxes. I wished for the mallards to nest on mine and I created what I understood to be a good nesting place -- a flower pot with hay inside and surrounding vegetation for privacy. But no luck.
This year new people live in that house -- Monica and George Fetzer -- and here's the story of what happened:
A mallard pair nested there -- see photo above -- and the female they named Gertrude laid 13 eggs. One of them got cracked and covered with ants, so they tosses that in the river. Twelve remained.
The eggs are suupposed to hatch 28 days from when the last egg is laid. She doesn`t start sitting till they're all laid.
Then, as George described and Monica wrote, "Gertrude faithfully sat on them even as I planted my summer flowers all around her. She even endured a dinner party with 33 people, many of whom were quite interested in her. Three days before the eggs were due to hatch we were awakened to a very-close smell of skunk. Alas...next day, no eggs. Darn. Maybe next year."
We were all disappointed and also shocked that a land animal like a skunk -- which we and our pets pungently experienced at various times when we lived in our land houses -- would defile our riverhouse existence!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThat's a big disappointment. Skunks are known, aside from their defense mechanism, to be omnivorous. They are not aggressive though, and they only spray that foul odor when they feel threatened. Maybe there are more than a couple of skunks in that area, fighting over those eggs, thus, the odor. I suggest you call a wildlife control service to keep them away for good before they enter the Mr. and Mrs. Fetzer's house. Anyway, I also hope that next year will be a good year for the eggs to hatch. Bill @SkedaddleWildLife.com
ReplyDelete