CHAPTER XVIII.

_How Wild Ducks Conceal Their Nests._

Possibly there is none of our birds that can conceal its nest better than the wild duck. This may be due to the fact that she has to be father and mother both.

In the first place she selects a spot where the foliage, dry sticks or weeds, are exactly the same color as herself. I once found a black duck’s nest right beside an oak stump that was charred black by being partly burned away, and really if you weren’t careful you might look at her all day and not see her, as she was exactly the same color.

Yes, I know there are a lot of people who will say “Oh, that just happened that way.” I tell you right here it did not happen that way. This is a gift to help these creatures out, and there is no man on earth can conceal anything better than a wild duck can her nest. An intelligent man once asked me how I hid when I hunted wild geese. I told him I covered myself with a blanket, and in a few weeks I saw him returning from a hunt carrying a red horse blanket.

After the duck has the spot selected she gathers a few twigs and so forth, but she lays the eggs right on the bare ground, going to her nest late at night and leaving long before the stars disappear in the morning. As soon as the crows start scouring the country, she flies back to the vicinity of her nest. I have seen a duck give a crow an aerial battle three or four times a day. But of course two crows are one too many for her.

From the time she starts laying, she covers the eggs very carefully with grass and sticks before she leaves the nest, therefore they are absolutely out of sight and protected from a slight frost, such as we sometimes have after the wild ducks have started laying. When the eight to twelve eggs are laid she pulls down off her breast and covers them. Now comes the question, how can she pack these eggs in that down, and cover them with sticks and grass, and not leave a sign of down to indicate that there is a duck’s nest within a mile? This is certainly a piece of shrewd work.

Wild ducks seldom ever leave their nests in the daytime after they start to set. I often go back to the north pond and watch them come home to feed, just at dusk, and they are usually there at twilight in the morning. This compels me to believe they sometimes stay off all night. However I found this duck’s nest, and one extremely hot day I saw her in the pond, so I slipped away with the kodak and got the two photographs. The lower one shows you where the nest is, but I doubt if you could locate it in the top picture. After I took one, I removed the down and got the lower photograph, which of course reveals the mystery. The down keeps the eggs warm until the old lady returns; you see the heat of her body gets the ground good and warm; then she packs the down carefully and firmly around the eggs, which holds the warmth there. She then puts the thatch of grass and sticks over the down and all is O.K., for she can stay away twenty-four hours if she sees fit.

Yes, we human beings invented a great thing when we produced the thermos bottle, but to the fowls of the air the invention is as old and as new as this beautiful earth.

Then when the young are hatched and old enough to catch insects, the mother starts off with her little sweethearts toddling after her in single file towards home, where she knows she will be helped in raising her family.

Her feathers are slightly ruffled, but this is a wild duck’s way when caring for its young. To me it is a beautiful sight, knowing she is on her way to the park where she will receive food and protection in time of need.