Suzie The Duck

On May 27, 2014 I was in our front yard wandering around with the dog and kids when I noticed the mulch under the Bradford Pear tree by the new plants I put in looked rather funny. As I walk toward the flower bed I see its actually a bowl shape with a beautiful ivory colored egg in it! I call the kids over and we are all about as excited as a kid at Christmas over the discovery. The kids instantly thought it was a goose as the Canadian geese are everywhere here but I knew the egg was too small. A quick Google search confirmed it was a Mallard duck egg and we were off. We got our lawn chairs set up in the shade of the garage and read about Mallard duck egg laying habits and here is what we found out:

Day 1

The female will lay 1-2 eggs per day up to 15 eggs (some sites said 12).
She will spend about an hour a day at the nest during the egg laying time.
Once she is done laying, it will take 25-29 days for the babies to hatch.
Once the babies hatch, they will only spend around 10 hrs at the nest before mama duck takes them to the water and food source which can be up to 3 miles away from the nest.

We felt like we had a mission. The kids named her Suzie The Duck and we kept a watchful eye out for her. I have to say, she pretty much did what we had read to a "T". She would usually be around for her hour of egg laying early in the morning and be gone by 7:30am. She really chose herself a pretty good spot. Under a tree, behind some iris and under another shrub. She blended perfectly with the mulch and if we didn't tell you she was there, you probably never even saw her. I say this because while it was a great place, it was also a very busy place. The bed lies along our driveway, behind a neighborhood area mailbox about 15 ft from the street. She sat so still and didn't mind the mower, the trash/recycling trucks, the neighbors getting their mail or the mailman loading it in the boxes, or my dog (I did keep my old curious lab from getting too close) or my kids.

She laid for 9 days and on the 10th day, stayed put and sat on those beautiful eggs. She sat literally for what seemed like 23 hrs a day on those eggs. Of course I don't know what she did at night but she would leave for an hour to an hour and a half during the early evening and then be back at it. I tried to take pictures of her and then the nest when she would leave just to document her behavior. I was able to count 10 eggs at one point when she didn't have them covered up very good. The kids were really enjoying watching her and being little informants with the neighbors. They even told a couple to be quiet by Suzie!

Day 2 Suzie was pretty good at covering them up on some days!

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6 Very good cover up job Suzie!

Finally got a good glimpse of Suzie on Day 7!

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10 Suzie was here to stay!

6-12-14 Ten beautiful eggs!

 Last night about 10:30pm my daughter (yes she was up due to a nap she took earlier in the day) and I took our dog out one last time before bed and I checked on Suzie. She looked funny and upon further inspection I saw broken egg shells everywhere. You could see a little bit of a baby sticking out from under her here and there and Lorelai and I were super excited. THE BABIES WERE HATCHING!!!! We left them alone and then I worried a bit they would be gone in the morning when my son got up and he would miss them. Luckily my kids are early risers so as soon as they were out of bed, we headed out front to keep an eye on them. There were 10 babies!!!! I was a bit worried they would try to head toward our neighborhood pond and there are a lot of streets and cars between here and there for a little bitty duck so we got the lawn chairs out, had breakfast and watched the new family. They kind of went around the tree trunk a bit at first. Stumbling over each other and trying to stay as close as possible to Suzie. Then all at once she left the flower bed and headed east toward the neighbors backyard. Just then, he pulled up in his car and she headed them back to the nest. 10 minutes later at 7:40am they tried again and this time kept going. We followed them along as they trekked through the neighbors backyard and into the grassy field behind our house. It was really all over so quickly and Wyatt and I looked at each other, a little disappointed. They were just there! And now they were gone! I shared with him that this was actually the best case scenario for Suzie and her little family as they weren't crossing streets to water but going to the area behind the house with a water source. It made us feel a bit better but the front yard is pretty empty without Suzie there. The remains of all the hatched eggs are still under the tree and the kids are having fun showing them off to the neighbors.

Tucked under mama's wing

Its getting crowded in here!

Back to the nest! Back to the nest!

Try, try again

Off they go!

10 little ducks all in a row

Almost to the field!

One thing I read when we first started this adventure is that she may come back again next year if her nest was a success. We are all hoping to see her back again. Until then, we are going to find some new duck jokes (the ones about the duck eating quackers is getting old) and make up stories about their adventures at the pond. This was such a great learning experience for my kids and me!

We are now empty nesters ;)