A "duck"umentary: Part II

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: There is a time to be born and a time to die..."
~Ecclesiastes 3:1-10

I'm the type of person who doesn't really show emotion one way or the other. When I'm upset about something, I tend to keep it to myself. When I'm excited about something, I might smile big, but I also stay pretty reserved. But this morning I was jumping up and down and screaming with excitement! My little "god-ducklings" were born!

Some of you might remember the little documentary I made last spring about a Momma Duck I look after around the lake I live on. In the spring, she laid a dozen eggs, but one by one, they disappeared and none of the eggs ever hatched. My heart broke for her as she slowly lost each of her babies. She diligently sat on her nest for 4 months hoping they would hatch, but the gestation period is really only supposed to be 30 days. At the end of the summer, she finally gave up and starting exploring other areas of the lake. Rhett and I continued to feed her every day as part of our walk around the lake, and last month I discovered she laid a new dozen eggs. Again, slowly, one by one they disappeared, and yesterday she was down to seven eggs. I was concerned for her yesterday because when I saw her, she had abandoned the nest and was in a different part of the lake, she was soaking wet, and looked like she had been attacked because some of her feathers were gone. I tried to lead her back to the nest with the bread, and she came about half way, but then got scared and ran the other way. So last night I was real worried about her and the remaining eggs and anxious to check in on her this morning to see if she made it back to the nest.

To my excitement, I discovered this morning, not only was she back at her nest, but two of the eggs had hatched!!!!!!!!! I even got to watch the second baby coming right out of its shell at that very moment as I walked up to the nest. I ran back to my condo and grabbed my macro lens, ran back to the nest, hopped the fence and took a million photos of these first moments of life. People were walking by amazed that the Momma Duck was letting me get so up close to her and her new babies, but I told them, "Oh, we go way back, I feed her everyday and she knows me. I'm practically the baby ducks' godmother!"

There is somebody who encourages me everyday always asking me, "What brought you life today?" And this is definitely what brought me life today. ;-)

So here's some of the photos of the cutesy fresh babes! And by the way, for those that aren't used to Florida ducks, these are called Muscovy ducks. I only know that from research because in high school I did a science fair project testing the hypothesis, "Do ducks really prefer bread, or other food groups?" I know, real scientific there. ha!