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Spring is in
the Air
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The studio and
the house I live in, which is situated in Carmel Valley, Ca. has a
nice size pond on its property, which by this time of the year is
buzzing with the sights and sounds of all kinds of creatures. Blue
herons, frogs, goldfish, tadpoles, minnows and of course mosquito’s,
are making the pond their home. By the time summer comes along, the
minnows will have eaten the mosquito larvae, the goldfish the
tadpoles, the frogs the minnows and the blue heron will have eaten
both the frogs and the goldfish….. Not all of them of course, and at
least one mosquito escapes from this ‘survival of the fittest’
ritual, finds its way to my studio and stings me right on the fore
head.
Early in April, I spotted a couple of mallard ducks in the pond,
which set me to thinking. What if I were to make a duck’s nest in a
hurry in the hope that the female duck would consider laying her
eggs in my ‘artistic’ re-enactment of a duck’s nest? (Hoping she
didn’t make a nest somewhere else already…)
In
my native country Holland, where we have a plethora of ducks because
of all the waterways, I remember seeing duck’s nests (eendenkooien)
build out of reed plants situated on poles in the center of a lake
or a pond, so that land animals at least will have a hard time
getting to it. |
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Click on images to enlarge |
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I decided to make a wooden
platform, (including steps), that I could anchor to the bottom of
the pond with a chain and something very heavy attached to it. For
the ‘nest’, I used an old laundry basket, removed the handles,
turned it upside down, customized it with an entrance for the duck,
and fastened it to the wooden platform. For the final step, Shelley
made up the inside of the nest with straw, (which I thought was best
left up to do by a female….)
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With the help of Shelley’s son
Chris we placed the heavy anchor on the edge of the wooden platform,
which had a string attached to it, in order to be able to pull the
anchor off the platform once we pushed the whole construction
towards the center of the pond
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To my surprise, the female
mallard was already checking out the strange construction that
following day, and immediately made it her home. Mallard ducks lay
one or two eggs a day, with an average nest of 12 to 15 eggs. The
moment that all eggs are laid, the incubating period of 28 days
begins.
Unfortunately, after a week I
noticed that the wooden platform was being so waterlogged that the
whole construction was slowly sinking. Slowly, the duck, and what I
assumed her eggs were becoming part of the pond.
Running the
risk of catching pneumonia by going chest deep into that cold and
slippery pond, I decided to place styro-foam blocks underneath the
platform in order to prep it up from the waterline…. This did work.
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Naturally, the duck took
off during that event, but did return a few hours later, which gave
me the opportunity to peek inside the nest….she was sitting on eight
eggs!
One other time I was
forced to ‘go into the pond’, when a storm had separated the nest
from the anchor and was blown onto the shore….Oh well, I’ve got to
save my duckies! My canvas is already prepared for them….
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Exactly 28 days
later…..A few tiny duck heads are peeping through Mom’s feathers to
get a first glimpse of that big, scary world out there….
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It
is nothing short of a miracle to see such a beautiful little
bright-eyed creature, alive, standing on two feet, making sounds and
dressed in a magnificent fur coat only a few hours after crawling
out of an egg…..
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