Jaci Dawn

The photos did not come out, but I decided to post them as my Photo 349/365 anyway.

If you have been following my blog, you know that we had nine goslings and ten ducklings waddling around the business park where I work. The last time I posted photos of them was the last time we saw them.

The geese and the ducks wander freely pond to pond, across a busy street and side streets. Then they just disappear. I’ve done a “Google Earth” search of the area near where I work and there is a wetlands to the west of us. It’s about a half-mile out, but entirely conceivable that geese and docks could waddle that far (assuming they get safely across the very, very busy street between the business park and the industrial area to the west. But it is only one street, a small industrial park, and a mostly unused railroad track before the wetlands).

I have no idea if the nine little goslings or the ten little ducklings made it. I hope so.

It is the middle of July and suddenly we have tiny baby ducks! Five of them as of Monday. Five of them as of Tuesday.

The sad part of this story is that we have no mama duck. She’s a pancake in the middle of an intersection in the business park.  She was in the crosswalk, so I don’t know why she got hit, but I suspect some people just do not care. Or they are talking on their cell phones despite the fact that it is illegal. Whatever happened, happened before we discovered the ducklings.

They are very wild and the closest I could come to them for photos is… well, not close.

24 hours after being orphaned, they were frenetic. They moved from pond to pond, stopping traffic, and waddling hurriedly around.

48 hours later, there are only three ducklings left. But there are 3.

I’ll try to keep you updated on these little guys. They are far too wild to try to capture. They keep to the far side of the pond from humans.

Speculating on the missing two, I’d guess crows. But one never knows.