Whilst clearing out the leaves of my little pond I came across a nest with some duck eggs in. Unfortunately this feathered lady had chosen a rather unsuitable spot to make her temporary home in, allowing her to be easy pickings for the fox. Not attuned to the protocol of touching eggs I moved the nest to a safer location on the little island. I first of all laid a wooden base down before removing the leaves from her original nest and placing them as best I could, not being skilled at nest making, in to the appropriate shape. Then carefully transferring the eggs I hoped that she would come back to sit. Much to my delight that evening she returned and on not finding her nest where she thought she had left it, she searched the area and on finding them continued with her sitting. We were blessed some time later with the joys of little ducklings paddling around. I was reminded of this recently when noticing a duck laying her eggs on the same island and wondered if it was usual to have ducks accept their eggs back once moved as I have been told since that you must never touch eggs or the smell of humans would stop them from coming back to care for them.

I believe that that is an old wive's tale.  It is always preferable to leave fawns and other baby animals alone, as the mother has chosen what she feels to be a safe spot, but it looks as if you did a good thing by moving your duck and her eggs to a safe spot.

By the way, most birds do not have a very good sense of smell, as they generally do not rely on that sense to find food.  Birds which eat carrion, such as ravens and vultures, do have a better sense of smell.  In fact, natural gas companies in the United States will watch for vultures along the pipelines to detect leaks, as there is a chemical added (meant to alert humans of leaking gas) which attracts vultures as well!

http://www.frontiernet.net/~friendswithf...lture.html

Kingfisher

That's a ingenius idea! The website you quoted is also a great read, very interesting stuff.

This post was last modified: 24-03-2007 03:21 PM by riana.