Duck eggs in tree nest
Last summer, we spent a few days in Salleles d’Aude, France, where we cycled along the Canal du Midi and the Canal de Jonction. Our hotel overlooked the Canal de Jonction, and in the morning, we would walk along the canal, looking at the water, the houses along the canal, the locks, and the ducks that swam in the canal and scurried along the shore.
When we walked by this plane tree, where a duck had turned a jagged space in the trunk a nest, I realized how rarely I see this “domestic side” of ducks, or most birds for that matter. I have often seen birds nesting (although usually up in trees), but haven’t often been this close to a nest, much less one with eggs in it.
As it turns out, the mother duck wasn’t away from home for too long. When we walked back by the tree a few minutes later, she had returned.
Duck in tree nest
See other’s interpretations of this theme here.