As people celebrated Mother’s Day, this female wood duck was very upset by the noise from the neighbor’s tractor working in the field next to my pond. Instead of sitting on the eggs, she kept getting up in case she had to flee from the unexpected tractor noise.
Worried Mother Duck
The birds and ducks are in various stages of nesting as this week I have spotted almost completed empty nests, nest with eggs in (and which parents complained loudly when I got too close), and nests were the parents where making many trips bringing food to the youngsters.
Bluebird Nest
When I was mowing yesterday, I scared up a little bunny and it was cute. Course those cute bunny rabbits grow up and eat my garden so it was a good thing I wasn’t mowing at my place, especially since I later scared up a little black kitten a few mowing passes later and then a mommy cat. And again, good thing not at my place! But I did chase up a deer when mowing my yard and they do eat my garden.
Besides the four legged critters which I kept interrupting with my mowing, I also bothered the feathered kind too and scared various mothers off their nest including a bluebird. The Eastern Bluebird female makes a nest by loosely weaving together grasses and pine needles, then lining it with fine grasses. After the female lays her pale blue eggs, only the female incubates the eggs (when I wasn’t scaring her off the nest that is).
Bluebird Nest and Eggs
According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology web site, the Mourning Dove’s nest is “a flimsy assembly of pine needles, twigs, and grass stems, unlined and with little insulation for the young.” Well that describes this Mourning Dove nest found on a snapped off tree, although I wouldn’t have noticed it if I didn’t scare her off the nest while on a hike.
Mourning Dove Nest
