Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Mystery of the Missing Eggs

Our duck eggs are no more. Yesterday afternoon I saw the eggs. This morning they are gone. Daphne (our name for the female Mallard) was on the nest this morning when my husband left for work about 6am. At 7am I heard quacking and found a distraught Daphne in my lawn. The eggs were all gone without a trace. No shells, nothing.

We live on a quiet cul-de-sac. People do not generally walk down our street. There are no children on the cul-de-sac. If a predator was involved there would be shells left. There were eight eggs, a raccoon can’t make off with them all at once. Also, it was light out. If she had hatched them overnight wouldn’t there be some evidence of that? They don’t travel for about 10 hours, and she would not have left the ducklings to return to our yard.

I have no answers. Anybody else have any thoughts on this?

~Marla

3 comments:

  1. A roaming dog could have easily eaten all eight eggs, and dogs eat shells, too. Sorry about your loss. -Rebecca

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  2. If it was an animal that ate them then I guess it is just life :( If it was a human... they are very lucky I didn't see them.

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  3. Just to update this...we have discovered a fox frequents our neighborhood! I guess the mystery is solved.

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