Ducklings

This was our backyard in Fort Worth until a couple of months ago. The neighborhood we lived in was adjacent to some parks. Brian and I have always enjoyed the various kinds of wildlife that we come across in our yard wherever we live: gheckos, lizards, squirrels, birds, dragonflies...all kinds of creatures. We often reminisce about our life in New Braunfels when we would even have deer in our yards. I would say the only experience that I didn't particularly enjoy was the bees that we got in Heidelberg because we had to leave the screenless windows open during warm weather. However, this was the only occassion that we were able to photograph any of the creatures.



We watched a pair of ducks in our yard for several weeks. I told Brian that one day we were going to have a whole family there, and he would sigh. The day arrived one afternoon when I came home from work. I spotted them learning how to navigate the water with momma in the lead. I ran inside to Brian where he came out with his camera. These ducklings were adorable!

However, we noticed something after a while: the ducklings could not get out of the water! Momma tried to show them by example, but the poor dears bounced off the side of the pool trying to get out. They made their way to a shallow spot that we use for sunning, but it was still too deep for the ducklings.



Finally we decided to help them out. We got out some floats and placed them at either end. The ducklings filed out, one after the other and away they went. We didn't see them after that; I think momma duck took them to safer waters.