Riders on the storm
This past Saturday afternoon, a man called to say a mother mallard duck had been killed by a cat while she was sitting on her nest. He was livid. He'd been watching her sitting on a bunch of eggs for some time and hated the thought of an entire generation wiped out. We asked when she'd been killed. He wasn't sure, but thought it must have been sometime during the night. By the time he called, they'd been unprotected for almost 12 hours, through close to freezing temperatures. Even though it was a long shot, we agreed to take the eggs and incubate them. When they arrived, they were icy cold. We shook our heads but went ahead and situated them in our big incubator. The very next night, during a severe thunderstorm, 16 of the 18 hatched.
This is the first group, fresh from the shell:
The next day, already eating and drinking:
Their first swim in shallow warm water, two days later. We have to swim them in two groups because there's so many:
Considering their history, we're amazed how many survived! Not many rehabbers will incubate eggs of any kind, usually because the success rate is so low and the conditions under which they were orphaned ususally extreme. Most songbird eggs come down during storms. Either their contents are addled in the fall or lying on the ground in cold temperatures do them in. But it pays sometimes not to give up. Surprises can and do happen.
Wishing everyone the best of surprises!
This is the first group, fresh from the shell:
The next day, already eating and drinking:
Their first swim in shallow warm water, two days later. We have to swim them in two groups because there's so many:
Considering their history, we're amazed how many survived! Not many rehabbers will incubate eggs of any kind, usually because the success rate is so low and the conditions under which they were orphaned ususally extreme. Most songbird eggs come down during storms. Either their contents are addled in the fall or lying on the ground in cold temperatures do them in. But it pays sometimes not to give up. Surprises can and do happen.
Wishing everyone the best of surprises!