‘Empty nester’ no more, thanks to timely duck tale

By Jill Callison, for Pigeon605

Sometimes, things happen exactly on schedule. Because while Karen Asfeldt would have welcomed a nesting mallard duck in her yard at any time, this spring it was particularly timely.

After a year-plus of pandemic isolation, adjusting to her husband Thomas’ new work schedule that puts him in another state and the sweet-but-take-your-breath-away realization that her two children are now adults, nature gave Asfeldt the chance to bond with another mother.

“It was a gift or a blessing to me,” she said. “I have a really strong faith, and I knew I needed this in my life this spring. It was magical for me to go through this experience and have that extra bit of life around me.”

The tale begins May 15 when Asfeldt’s husband, home for the weekend from Connecticut where he is a consultant for a cancer center, spots a mallard drake and duck on the roof of their southeastern Sioux Falls home. Two days later, the pair return, apparently scouting out the best location for a nest.

On May 23, Asfeldt is in her yard watering flowers. That’s when she startles Mama Duck, who bolts from her nest in Asfeldt’s snow-on-the-mountain plants. She counts six eggs.

By May 27, the duck is “loafing” on the nest all but a couple of hours a day.

Two days later, Asfeldt glimpses nine eggs in the nest. According to the research she has done on mallards, she estimates a due date of June 23.

On June 7, Asfeldt’s birthday, her gifts include looking out her dining-room window to watch the duck faithfully incubating the eggs.

When the duck takes her brief trips for sustenance, Asfeldt can watch her camouflage the eggs by covering them with wood chips and feathers she plucks from her body.

“Our backyard is fenced in, and you could call it a sanctuary,” Asfeldt said. “It’s safe from predators.”

Even Asfeldt’s dog, a cockapoo named Toby who is a retired therapy dog, is content to stay out of that corner of the yard. Asfeldt alerts the neighbor boy who mows her yard to the duck’s presence, and he is careful to leave an arc of grass in front of the nest.

While awaiting the ducklings’ hatching, Asfeldt sits in her backyard one night, determining the duck’s flight pattern in leaving and returning to the nest. She checks the nest several times a day, and her sense of kinship with the mother-to-be grows.

But it is on Father’s Day — a tribute to dads who couldn’t be with their offspring perhaps — that the ducklings begin arriving. Even though the eggs were laid over nine days, Asfeldt’s research had let her know they would hatch at the same time.

With the help of a neighbor, Asfeldt props open both gates to her yard, wide enough so the duck and her brood can exit when they need to but narrow enough to keep predators out.

“Once they have hatched, at that point her goal is to get them going to water within that first day,” Asfeldt said. “It’s kind of amazing when you see how little they are and how helpless when they’re born.”

Getting to a source of water is essential for mallards because they are ground-based and need to be protected from predators, said Mike Hillman of Sioux Falls, who has been a “duck rehabber” for seven years.

“If they do it right, they have to nest fairly close to a water source but far enough away that something won’t find the nest and attack it,” Hillman said.

Speaking of doing it right, Asfeldt handled the duck nest in her yard exactly the way she should have, Hillman said. She gave the mother space to incubate her eggs without fear and helped them depart when the time was right.

Hillman usually releases at least 40 orphaned ducks into the wild a year, and this year he estimates it will be even more. He released 11 on Saturday and rehabs both mallards and wood ducks. One day this spring he had 21 ducks come into his temporary custody. He generally receives the ducks three ways: through the state Department of Game, Fish & Parks, through Sioux Falls Animal Control or from the general public, who find the ducklings in window wells, street drains or on their own after cars strike and kill the mother ducks.

That happens all too often, Hillman said. That is why he is pleased that the city of Sioux Falls has posted “duck crossing” signs at several locations, such as 57th Street and Sycamore Avenue. Hillman would like to see more of the signs go up near bodies of water such as Covell Lake.

Asfeldt’s ducklings leave her yard without benefit of a sign or a human crossing guard. On June 21, the day after they hatch, Asfeldt wakes up early to check out the nest.

Mama Duck leaves for an hour, likely to make a last pass over her intended route, and Asfeldt uses that time to photograph the ducklings. There are eight now, with one egg left unhatched.

Asfeldt has reported for work at Thrivent Financial when the duck leads her babies to their new home. But both Asfeldt and her husband saw the journey begin about 10:15 a.m. via their security camera. The duck and her ducklings — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 — leave from the Asfeldts’ west gate.

The parents might come back next year. It’s quite likely, Hillman said.

“If a mallard duck nests in a site and is successful and she survives migration and she survives hunting season, the chances are very good she will come back next year, as long as conditions are the same,” he said.

Her co-workers tease Asfeldt that once again, she is an empty-nester. And it’s true she felt lonely for a couple of days. When she drives by a pond, she looks over at it, wondering if “her” duckling are enjoying the water.

But while she misses the adventure of following this duck tale, she knows it came at exactly the right time. The Asfeldts have lived in Sioux Falls for 27 years and in their current house for almost 16. Never did a duck nest in their yard, Asfeldt said.

Until she really needed it.