A Time for Hope
My family and I live on a small lake in Florida. While some of you immediately envision boating, swimming, tubing and lake parties in general, we had those in abundance when the kids were younger. But you would be more accurate to envision constant upkeep, and blind mosquito swarms twice a year which require more upkeep in pressure washing and painting. But I’m not complaining.
What we do get is wildlife. All kinds. From birds: Ibises, herons, limpkins, sand hill cranes, cormorants, anhingas, coots, great egrets, kingfishers, wood ducks, and many more…to squirrels, opossums, armadillos, and even the occasional fox. And raccoons.
The wood ducks love to swim into our little cove and waddle into the yard to munch on the acorns our old live oaks drop in abundance. The drakes have gorgeous iridescent plumage with crested heads and distinctive white stripes from the eyes to the end of the crest. The hens are not colorful. Their plumage of browns intermingled with beige offer better camouflage.
A couple years ago, my husband Jay built and put up a duck box close to the water. We lined the bottom with shavings. And, hurray! Soon we saw activity. A pair of ducks floated in, the drake flew on top of the box to stand sentinel while the hen flew into the opening and did her thing. This went on for a few weeks. Soon she had a lovely clutch of eggs. We were thrilled. Then, one morning I looked out of the kitchen window and saw pieces of light colored stuff around the cypress tree close to the duck box. My brain knew what it was before my heart accepted, but when I ran down to investigate, it took a few seconds for the anger and despair to settle in. I cleaned up the broken eggshells and gazed sadly into the empty box.
So this year, we put a large critter shield around the pole holding the duck box. We also installed a trail camera on the nearby cypress to monitor activity. Again, the box attracted beautiful ducks, this time two pairs. I researched and discovered that hens will sometimes share a clutch. After a few weeks, my son stuck his cell in to take a photo and we saw a wondrous sight: fifteen beautiful big eggs. We were joyful. We were thrilled And we were obsessed. Us, proud landlords for a brood of fifteen! I envisioned the two mamas divvying up the babies and floating serenely back and forth before nestling down in our abundant lake reeds.
Two days later I collapsed in tears. Jay had pulled the SD card out of the trail camera to see what kind of view we had. A clear strong view it turns out. Of a fat raccoon hanging onto the box, working it for several hours until he managed to squeeze himself into the hole. The next video shows him wiggling out of it, dropping to the ground and slinking off. I swear he was licking his lips. When I ran down to the box and looked in, every egg had been broken and sucked dry. All fifteen.
We watched one of the hens as she discovered the pillage, the drake standing sentinel as usual. A few minutes later she came out of the box, flew into the water and began to swim off. Her drake followed. I don’t know if the second pair came around. I pulled the shade down on the kitchen window that gave me clear view of the place of carnage. The next day I cleaned out the box and put in fresh shavings, in case she had it in her to try again. But the pairs stopped coming around.
This afternoon, Jay ran in the house, yelling for me to come quick and look…floating serenely by our waterfront was a hen with a tiny brood close on her tail. I couldn’t get a count, they looked freshly hatched, tiny fluff balls. But what I did get on this Easter weekend is hope. Hope for renewal that springtime gives us. There is no way to know if this was my hen; probably not since we have a good group of ducks spread out on the lake. But it could be. It’s not unusual for the hens to lay multiple clutches because instinct tells them they may need to. To succeed. To not fail.
These days I have to remind myself about hope. It’s a huge four-letter word that we have to cling to in times of upheaval and despair. To succeed in spite of what happenstance, or life, throws at us, including pandemics, race hate, politics, police brutality, etc. What a year it was. The after effects are still reverberating in this new year. But we can be resilient and determined. To right the obvious wrongs and examine the ones not so obvious.
Failure only comes from giving up. Next year, I hope our ducks will come back and give the box another try. We will have a larger critter guard along and electric fence wiring on the pole with just enough voltage to send our raccoon elsewhere. I won’t give up.
