Duck Tales

In a previous post (Arizona Spring) I mentioned the Ducks who decided to live in my backyard. Since 7 of the ducklings died while we were off on a trip, Terry stepped up his Daddy Duck position and went to the local feed store to pick up appropriate food. He wanted them to be healthier than a steady diet of just Cheerios. Let's face it, our pool isn't teaming with pond scum and what ever life lives around a natural habitat. With the new diet the babies were thriving. Then trouble arrived. Apparently other ducks got wind of the easy life that existed on our side of the fence. Free food, free lodging, and some old guy cleaning up every day after you. So we got a couple of new squatters. Another male and female that thought they could nest here too. First there were turf wars, where they tried to chase mom and babies from our pool.

Here they are heading into the pool after the mom and babies.

Then there was posturing and gang violence.

Daddy duck couldn't let that happen. So he collected some lemons from our tree and lobed them at the illegal ducks in our pool. They would fly off, but as soon as we went into the house, they would fly back over the border. Mother duck was concerned for her ducklings. We had two concerns. Protect the ducks that were already here, and no way were we going to allow more squatters. There is a limit to the number of ducks our backyard can sustain. The "war on ducks" lasted for several days. Terry with his lemons and the ducks taking flight. Terry said if they didn't stay in their own territory he would bring out the heavy artillery. Before you get all liberal "left wing" on us let me be perfectly clear. We have no problem with ducks. We just have a problem with illegal ducks. Especially since we are footing the "bill". So, like many politicians and T.V. commentators like to say..."If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck." We reserve the right to determine which ducks live in our back yard. (We also hope they take flight before summer as it is starting to get hot and we want to utilize our own pool.)