August 2013

A young coyote came out of the woods the other morning, lanky and big-eared. He had not yet grown to full proportion, to hunting maturity. We rarely see coyotes though we hear them plenty; it is usually the curious youngsters or the lagging old that we catch a glimpse of. This young pup was draw from the willowy thickets at the back of our property by scent, I’m sure. The scent of rabbits. We are over run with rabbits.

He followed his sensitive nose to every bush, brush pile and stand of tall grass we have seen a rabbit dash into in the passed weeks. He was an obviously bad hunter as he switched direction with a rabbit-like zig-zagging motion; but never spooked or caught one of those nibbling, breeding, sneaky varmints.

He wandered off quite quickly. Had he caught my un-showered-scent, or the tang of Earl Grey that rose from my morning bowl? He was content to leave empty-handed, or –mawed I should say. I was glad to see a predator taking interest in our continually exploding population of pests, cute, adorable pests. I was glad also that he took no notice of the ducks.

Our last batch of ducks , a few years back were nabbed by coyotes. They had been too comfortable around our dogs, even jumping on their backs and napping with them in the shade of the cherry tree on hot summer afternoons. It was charmingly Disney-esque. “Our Peaceable Little Kingdom, “ I called those moments. Even the cats steered clear of the ducks. What we had “taught” the ducks was that dogs were safe. Not smart enough to distinguish a lab from a coyote it was their undoing.

It is a luxury we cannot afford, living on the edge of a 150-acre nature preserve that bleeds off in every direction into voluminous acres of farmland, greenbelts, wooded suburbs and derelict golf courses. We are putting a little more fear of God, or should I say coyote, into our new ducks, because we don’t want to keep them perpetually penned. We keep duck primarily for slug control. The slugs here are of legendary proportions and populations. They gnaw every cabbage seedling, ripe tomato and hosta they can find. I even found one gargantuan one 8 feet off the ground nibbling the new foliage on a sapling magnolia this spring. We must stop them. Sluggo certainly slows them down, but is costly at the scale we’re gardening and farming. Ducks do the trick. And they produce eggs.

They convert slug protein into a usable egg-protein. I gave some duck eggs to a friend of mine and stupidly said, “The ducks are turning slugs into usable proteins.” He later told me he threw the eggs out, thinking a slug might drop out of the shell when he cracked it over the frying pan.

Our current batch of ducks, 2 Khaki Campbells, 2 Black Cayugas and one Magpie had nearly wiped out all the slugs in our vegetable field in a short month. So I began herding them around the property to hunt slugs under the blueberries or in the little woodland garden I started at the front of the house. They were very excited to have new territory to explore and quack and waddle in such a charming manner I can’t help but laugh at them.

They are such a little cohesive gang, the 5 of them, that I have very little worry that they might be attacked by coyotes in broad daylight, the only time they are free to roam. Over time I have grown tired of watching them and they often roam the property freely. And that has turned out to be a big mistake. I thought they would be great protectors of my hosta collection— not the best thing to collect when one lives in the city-of-slugs— but they’re not. They have actually turned their paddle-like bills to hosta destruction. I know even the Japanese eat hostas, not to mention deer, rabbits, and slugs, so they must be tasty. But I don’t think those ducks actually taste them; they just shred them for fun while the gossip in their quackity patois.

The ducks have dome more damage to this hosta in a few short minutes when my back was turned than the slugs had done all spring to all the hostas.

Michael loves confit de canard; duck is one of my least favorite meats. Yet I have been thinking, as they started going for the hydrangeas. of the crispy skin of Peking duck.

Of course we keep them penned a lot more, but that doesn’t help the slug problem any, or the crane fly population either. I wish they would eat rabbits, too. Wasn’t there a contentious relationship between daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny? “Rabbit season.”; ”Duck season.” I actually caught he ducks hanging out with a rabbit on the lawn last night. Were they scheming? Am I now old McGregor, the famer I was taught to loath as a child?

It is a complicated ecosystem we’ve created here, and I am no longer sure who is the pest and who the pesticide. I look forward to the young coyote’s return, his increasing skills as a hunter. But do I want him to start eyeing our ducks when the rabbits are all gone. And those damn ducks; is it boredom that drives them to destroy our ornamental plants? How do we keep them from getting bored?

This morning I went out at dawn to let the ducks out from their secure night shelter, hopefully deterring not only coyotes but raccoons, too. I stopped to take a pee on the ground—so luxurious is country living.—from a mole hole not a yard from where I stood popped up a long-tailed weasel. I had noticed the molehills had been slowly vanishing, but never questioned why. That moment I knew.

The weasel gave me a quick adorable once over then slipped back underground. I thanked him, and then tossed a quick hope heavenward that he has more of a taste for Hasenpfeffer than canard a l’orange.