The duck hens are all laying, but in 3 inches of water!
So it looks like they actually don’t have any brooding instinct at all.
No little ducks.
Something got one of the eggs. It and another egg were strewn along the bank. Then I looked down into the water, and there were three eggs just sitting there.
One of the hens is a true wild mallard. One is a hybrid between a wild and a tame one (of a breed selected for egg production), and the other is a bloody mongrel.
The mallards spend next to no time on land. There are just too many predators.
So they are at a dead end.
A pair of blackbirds are building an untidy nest in one of our hedgerows and a pair of blue tits (like your chickadees?) are spring cleaning a nest box nailed to a garden tree, but the only eggs so far are bound up in two blobs of frog spawn in the garden pond. We really look forward to seeing tadpoles after the previous years savage winter caused a complete absence of breeding frogs last spring. The present spring follows a virtual non winter here in the south with no ice or snow, just that much low lying ground was under water for several months. It’s now a tranquil spring – the only problem being air pollution especially around London some forty miles to the east – where locally produced pollution is combining in a dangerous cocktail with airborne sand from the Sahara – as we speak!!
Awww =[
Reminds me of the Tale of Jemmima Puddle Duck by Beatrix Potter. Its was in that story that i first learned tame ducks and geese make lousy nest sitters.
Have you thought about building a few rafts in the pond for the ducks to nest on? Your wild mallard might build a nest next year on it.
You might still get lucky. My Runners and Harlequins lay eggs all over the pasture carelessly, and then suddenly they decide to sit and their behavior changes. They start laying in a nest and bury their eggs under hay or grass where I can’t find them. Then…ducklings!
I agree with bem. When I raised ducks my first spring eggs were laid everywhere, even in the water, then instinct seemed to kick in and they began laying them in nests.