A Duck Who Touched Our Lives
Making Way For Our Guest
I recently moved from staying with my sister in Potts Camp, MS for a while, where she owns a house that sits on 10 beautiful acres and has a small pond out her back door. While the pond was really nice, some areas were pretty grown up and taken over by vines along two sides of it. While I was there, they decided to start clearing it off so that they could build up the levee this spring and stock it with catfish.
We worked for several days clearing off the vines and thinning out the trees to reveal a beautiful little pond that was now even more attractive to view. We finished on a Sunday afternoon and just stood back to admire the handywork.
Muskovy Duck
Our New Guest
My sister had lived there for four years and always said that she would love to have some ducks there but was afraid that her Golden Retriever, Lacy, would keep them chased away (if she didn't catch and eat them!). On Monday morning when we got up and walked outside, we saw a beautiful chocolate Muskovy Duck on the pond that came in overnight!
We were really excited to see him out there and he was gorgeous. We took some bread down to the pond and started throwing it into the water to help it become comfortable with our presence. What would come over the next few days would not only surprise but amaze us all!
More Muskovy Ducks
Just Call Him a People Duck
If you aren't familiar with what a Muskovy Duck is, they are originally from Brazil and are the only duck that are not a breed of the Mallard. They are domestic ducks and this domestication has resulted in many different colors of the breed.
Now, when I say domestic, I don't just mean that he will eat from your hand! After a couple of days of feeding, he became very comfortable with this. By the end of the week, he was climbing the bank toward the back porch whenever we went outside. We fed him off the porch a few times and the next thing we know, he is on the porch looking through the glass of the french doors when we got out of bed in the mornings!
The more time that passed, the funnier this thing got. If you went outside, he would run to you like a puppy and just follow you all over the yard. When you left and drove back up he would come out to the vehicle to meet you and you even had to watch him when you got ready to leave because he would follow you to the vehicle and act as if he may get inside. We never gave him that chance to see if he would!
And the dogs? That thing would follow my Pug all over the place and Lacy had no effect on him at all when she barked so she finally just stopped barking at him. Before long, he was spending more time on the porch than in the pond. If he couldn't see anyone through the door, he would fly onto the porch railing and peep through the kitchen window until somebody came out to visit! This was really funny to all of us. That is, until we went out the back door and forgot to watch our step! It began to be a full time job cleaning off the porch every day!
All Good Things Must Come to an End
Apparently, he got the idea that maybe we had all abandoned him one weekend as my sister and brother-in-law had gone out of town for the weekend and Danny and I had just moved to our new home. When we went back to the house Sunday to pick up the last load to carry to the house, he was gone!
So far, he hasn't returned but I do have hopes that he will. Most people say that when they settle like that for a while, they usually return eventually and sometimes have a flock with them. While this would be fun to see, I really feel for my sister if they all decide to homestead on her back porch. I wish her lots of luck! I will, however be going to see this sight if he does return and take lots more pictures!