This week was a busy one for the flock, with a possible first duck egg, me wading in the pond, broody chickens, and the heron and a flock of geese visiting.

An egg?!  Maybe!  We found this large broken white egg on the edge of the pond; it sure looks like it could be a duck egg, and I am expecting Gert to start laying about now. I have been looking most days for more, but haven’t found any yet:

On Sunday I waded into the pond with a large ceramic pot, to make a small island for the ducks:

The pot island:

The main reason for doing that was that the ducks often perch on the pot that encloses the pump, but I also wanted to clean and turn on the pump, which would prevent that:

Here’s the pump going:

A bunch of pictures of the ducks while I was standing in the pond:

Ducks going into their house:

I’ve seen the ducks sitting below the pond deck on several occasions; I’m wondering if that’s a possible nest location (nothing there yet, though):

Let’s not forget the chickens. Here are some having dust baths in the veggie garden:

Enjoy it while you can, girls! Once the weather warms up enough for us to start planting, they’ll be evicted.

Refilling one of the outdoor waterers; it’s easier to do that in summer, when the garden water is on, but at present I have to turn on an underground valve for one of the pipes, which leads to this tap in the back lawn, plus the pond tap:

Domino laying an egg in a nesting box:

You can see the leftmost egg still glistening, moments after being laid:

The heron stopped by briefly:

An animated GIF of topping up the pond; you can see the water from the hose on the right, and the water level rising slowly (watch the pond edge):

Ducks following me down the path:

Did you see my YouTube video of eleven geese taking a pitstop in our pond?

Here are some photos of that, starting with the geese landing (look in the upper-left corner):

The geese taking off:

Finally, Martha is being broody again, hanging out in a nesting box; here she’s sitting on 15 eggs: