2nd verse of the Ballad Of Mildred The Mallard

If you read the original Ballad, you'll remember that we were left wondering what would become of sad little Mildred. Well, it turns out that there may be a happy ending after all, because yesterday, we found this ...



It's her nest!

And the eggs are fertilized! (We won't go into details about how we know, but let's just say it involved cracking one open, and ... um...)

Annnnnyway, now that we know where her nest is, we have found that she spends quite a bit of the day snuggled down on the nest, keeping the eggs warm. She is brown, and the grass is long, and she is really hard to see, and when she leaves to eat, she covers the eggs with leaves and loose feathers to hide them, and keep them warm. Gestation period for ducks' eggs seems to be about 28 days, so it seems that some time in the next month, we're going to have ducklings!

True, she _has_ been disowned by the pekings, and even when she finds them, they just quack at her a bit, and then turn away, leaving her calling pitifully after them, but it's not anywhere near as sad as it was, because she's going to be a mom. It's the Ballad of Mildred the Mother!

Stay tuned!