Rubber ducky, you're the one!

Sing it with me... you know you want to! :)

OK, so now that I have that song stuck in your head for the rest of the day, I thought I'd share these pictures. We had no idea that this duck (we call her "Beeper" because she makes a beeping noise) was sitting on a nest of eggs somewhere close by. And then last Saturday she showed up in our yard with 17 babies! They are absolutely, positively, adorable! (I probably won't be saying that when I end up with adult ducks that won't leave my yard...)

She's down to 15 (one yellow one that we have nicknamed Sunshine), and we're not sure if the other 2 were eaten by something or just died, but she's had 15 for about a week now. They visit us every day, several times a day. They've gotten pretty used to me and Jay. They used to get spooked when we walked by, but they don't any more. Of course, Jay feeds them and has set out three tubs of water for them. He even went out and bought a special dish with a low rim so they could get in it. But, as we quickly found out, they're pretty smart and found a way in to the big tubs without much of a problem.

UPDATE as of 10 p.m.

Not 10 minutes after I clicked "publish post" on this post, Jay came in and told me that Sunshine fell down the drain across the street. So, we spent the next 30 minutes coaxing him / her out of the drain. The neighbors all came out to watch, and we were able to net him / her and get him / her back to mama. And, mama and babies have not left our driveway (where I reunited them) since. Jay says that she knows it's a safe spot and she'll stay for awhile now. The things we do for little baby duckies...