Dead Duck

Several weeks ago a pair of ducks kept showing up around my brush pile so I suspected that she had a nest on the big log with brush / weeds growing out of the top of it.

Then one day she showed up - acting sick - and died later that day. The mallard kept coming / calling / looking for her

Then today I was working on my brush pile - covering up open spots on the logs so the turtles don't have a place to sit :) - and I found the empty nest with two eggs still left inside

Guess what else I found in the nest - a big ole snake and he didn't want to move until I tried to hit him with a boat paddle - I didn't have my pellet guy - dang it (OOPS I forgot it's not legal to kill the snakes around here - so if I had my pellet gun I would not have shot the poor little snake (I'm so honest and never lie - unless it relates to snakes or other varmint :)

I dumped the rotten eggs in the lake just to keep the snake from eating the two remaining eggs - in hindsight I should have left the eggs and went back later with my pellet gun - but the game warden knows I wouldn't harm a poor snake and that the dead ones that show up around here must have died of old age (or they choked on bream that were on my yoyo's - or perhaps a couple ran head first into a pellet e.g. somehow got a pellet between their eyes (strange how they do that sometimes when they (or nobody else) is looking :)