Wonderful haiku, Aimée.

We just noticed 2 young Muscovy ducks in our lake but they were too far away for a photo. The Muscovy family hasn’t been coming for cracked corn much recently so I suspected there may be babies somewhere. In the past, they’ve brought their young to meet us and learn to eat cracked corn. The ones I saw today were older so I think the fox that moved in the neighborhood a couple of months ago led the Muscovy family to keep the ducklings hidden as long as possible. The fox had 2 kits that are old enough to hunt now. Some mornings, we see one or the other of them loping along the lake’s edge, heading back to the den. My neighbor just told me today that she took her little dog out for a short walk at 10 pm last night and one of the foxes was in front of our door! She grabbed her dog and ran back to her place! Her dog doesn’t weigh more than 8 lbs — an easy catch for a fox.

Here is a photo of Muscovy ducklings I took in March 2019. The family brought them to our shore: