Hi Tweeters,

Yesterday I was leaving a meeting at Mary Gates Hall on UW campus and a batch of brand new hatched mallard ducklings were in Frosh Pond. I was wondering where could the female have nested there? The edge holding the pond is about 2 feet tall and no obvious spot inside the pond to nest-it is all water. I then ran into a coworker who said all the ducklings were huddled by the concrete edge of the pond earlier, so someone must have put them over into the water for mom duck. I don't know what they will do when mom duck is ready to change locations.

Along those lines a few weeks ago I found a small brood of Northern Shovelers in the greater Kent Valley that were in a precarious location, a fenced off mitigation type pond. Unless they find an opening they are stuck there until they can fly. I didn't post about them because of their not so great location at the time. I have not checked on them since. Shovelers don't nest very often around here but I thought the better decision was to leave them be and hope for the best.

Ducks really get themselves into odd situations.

Kathy
Roosting in Kent, near Lake Meridian
(chukarbird at yahoo dot com)