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They are both due on the third of May. They both appear content in their confinement and are side by side to boot.

Wilma is a wood duck. This is her fourth clutch in the nest box on our pond. Previous years she has hatched 15 or 16 ducklings, perhaps with an overlay of another female because that seems too much for one small duck. This year she is sitting on twelve eggs. I have once seen another female in the nest box with her, but now Wilma is alone. A male wood duck comes and visits for a short while twice a day. Wilma does not like me checking on her, flying out in a sprint as I approach.

Cherise on the other hand seems to like my company. She is a Canada goose nesting on the ground, almost underneath Wilma’s nest box. Cherise started her laying on the upper pond and was in company with a male goose I call Doug. One day, early on, Doug was gone and a pile of down was left along side the pond. Cherise abandoned two eggs and moved down to the lower pond. One egg was broken, probably by a skunk, the other intact. I gingerly moved the abandoned egg and put it under Cherise’s second sitting next to two new eggs. Cherise is going to have a tough time parenting and protecting her goslings without a second goose to help. She looks up, but does not move, when another pair of geese fly over every morning.

I like to think that Cherise is one of Alice’s children. Alice and Billy raised five to six goslings on the upper pond every year for six years. In 2019, Alice was killed by a bobcat while sitting on four eggs. For the rest of the year, no geese came any where near the upper pond. How did they know it was unsafe?. The geese that fly over Cherise every morning, I call Ellen and Frank. They have scrapped a rough nest in the exact spot where Alice had her nest and exactly where Cherise started laying. Ellen has not yet laid any eggs and they stay at the pond for only a few hours a day. I think she is too young to yet be a parent, but is practicing.

In the next week, I expect both Wilma and Cherise to hatch their clutches. I will try very hard to witness it. They will immediately take their families to another location, away from the birth site, which all predators know about. I will have to be vigilant to catch the birthing.