Skyecrafts’s Weblog

A drama of life and death played out in front garden through the past year. My husband made a nice little nook for me to sit out in the front yard. I am hidden from sight from our bushes and I enjoyed the privacy. I spent some time out there during the last few months of pregnancy with my third child.

Then mother nature and her numerous furry and feathered citizens discovered the peaceful serenity of this little secret garden and moved right in.

Mama Muscovy duck took her lover Drake in to my nook. Have you ever seen 2 Muscovy ducks fooling around? Neither have I, I decided not to look after I heard the sound of something similar to a small boat starting up in my garden.  There are some things I just don’t want in my head and this was one of them.

Well, soon after, Mama Muscovy is nesting. Then the babies are born.

A word about the environment. At the time, a lady across the street was feeding them and giving them water. I was just providing the safe area to stay away from predators. I didn’t give in and feed them. My mother did that with stray cats and we all know what happens with them. Well, these ducks are the same way.

The babies were beautiful. They moved with precision through our blades of grass while following their mother. Their beauitful gold and black little feathers flowed like a wave in the ocean or wind through golden harvest of wheat. A beautiful visual rhythm of nature, sort of astounding to this city girl.

One thing about babies though, they do grow up. They grew up fast, all 26 of them. They all stayed in my nook then went across the street to eat and drink. They pooped all over the place, however their poop is good fertilizer for citrus trees and a tree I didn’t even know was a Lime tree started producing fruit after of a few months of Muscovy duck fertilizer in it’s soil.

Well, I began to get sick. I have allergies, as I explained to the ducks. I can’t take all of your feathers and I can’t take that damn stray cat that refuses to leave either. So, can’t you just buy a group rate and take yourselves and that cat and move into one of the numerous foreclosed houses on our street?

The ducks didn’t listen. The cat sighed heavily with my reasoning for wanting her to evict her property.

I started shooing the ducks away. I used broomsticks and my voice. They were adults, it was time to stop hanging around my little nook. I cleaned the piles of poop on my chairs and tables and front walkway. I fenced off the nook. After some time, they stopped coming by. My eyes stopped feeling irritated every time I came home. I started breathing better and I started sitting outside in my nook again.

The ducks continued to come by but they stayed away for the most part. That was when I started noticing the arrows. Bright yellow arrows sticking out of their necks and bodies. My mind didn’t make sense of it. It just seemed to not belong in “my ducks” especially the runt, who had an arrow sticking clear through his neck. I was horrified. I started to cry. I called animal control who told me they had a bunch of calls like this and to trap the injured ones and call them back to pick them up.

I posted a letter on PETA and exchanged emails with an interested person who wanted to help.

I unfenced my garden area, I invited them back.  Slowly they did.  Now, I have a few that hang out by me again . The ducks with the arrows were picked up and taken to the “VET”  (bridge….Brooklyn….sale) So, I now have my ducks back, or at least their grandchildren. They act like pets and come up to us wagging their tail feathers and drinking from flowerpots that my garden gnomes are holding.

Ok, so this is how I got interested in Muscovy ducks. I found out they eat lots of bugs and dangerous spiders like the brown recluse spider. They will drink the water left in your flowerpots and eat all of the mosquito larvae in there. They are quite beneficial to citrus trees (my own experience) and their poop just hoses off into your dirt. Frog poop, which we always find on our windowsills does not wash off easily.

Muscovy ducks are not native to Florida. They are like most of the people around here, transplants. However, this is an important fact. By not being protected by the Florida Wildlife Foundation,  people have the right to dispose of them. By disposing of them, the foundation suggests to shake the eggs found in a nest to kill the babies. The foundation gives no suggestions for dealing with the adults. It leaves it all up the person, like the person who decided that shooting them with a crossbow was a good idea.

Ok, even if you don’t care about these ducks or you hate them , you must undertand that they should be protected. People dispose of them like roaches and this is inhumane. People shoot them like what happened here in Port Richey and this is dangerous, to other animals and people around. It’s a short hop from shooting a duck, to shooting your dog. Plus what if the shooter misfires and shoots into a house window or a car driving by.

I would like to see Muscovy ducks protected. I am trying to change their status, so besides writing about my turning green, I will write about these ducks and my new found activism.

April Kolen

Skyecrafts INC