Mallard egg shell mystery (2 Viewers)

[Woody Thrush]

On Easter Sunday, the 9th of April whilst the grandchildren raced about searching for Easter eggs I spied a mallard setting on her nest behind a lilac thicket/flower bed next to the house. Very rarely since then would we check to see if she was still there. We did not want to disturb her, as this was the first time we were aware of a mallard nesting right up against our house about 200 feet away from the creek below. We're very comfortable checking in as we do on our bluebirds, tree swallows, chickadees, and house wrens as they are with us, but mallards are for us a bit more wild. Our intent was to give her plenty of space and leave her undisturbed, so much so that my wife deferred weeding the flower bed around the lilac.
Earlier this week my wife peeked in and found an empty nest and assumed that the hen had a successful hatch and that she and the ducklings made straight for the creek early one morning. I say, "assumed" because we never attempted to find any ducklings, never made an attempt to see if they truly hatched. We wanted to afford the mallard her nest's privacy and not to leave a human-scent trail directly to the nest. Well, an empty nest for us meant it was now safe to weed that otherwise undisturbed flower bed. When my wife removed the nest, carved into the surrounding wood mulch and consisting mostly of down and finer pieces of wood mulch at a depth of 3-4 inches, she discovered underneath the nest lining pieces of egg shell, some half shell and many other smaller pieces. They were not on the surface of the nest lining, but a good 3 inches below, certainly not visible from the surface. It almost appears as if the mallard hid the egg shells underneath the lining. We are clueless.
Any comments, please?

 

[runjanet]

On Easter Sunday, the 9th of April whilst the grandchildren raced about searching for Easter eggs I spied a mallard setting on her nest behind a lilac thicket/flower bed next to the house. Very rarely since then would we check to see if she was still there. We did not want to disturb her, as this was the first time we were aware of a mallard nesting right up against our house about 200 feet away from the creek below. We're very comfortable checking in as we do on our bluebirds, tree swallows, chickadees, and house wrens as they are with us, but mallards are for us a bit more wild. Our intent was to give her plenty of space and leave her undisturbed, so much so that my wife deferred weeding the flower bed around the lilac.
Earlier this week my wife peeked in and found an empty nest and assumed that the hen had a successful hatch and that she and the ducklings made straight for the creek early one morning. I say, "assumed" because we never attempted to find any ducklings, never made an attempt to see if they truly hatched. We wanted to afford the mallard her nest's privacy and not to leave a human-scent trail directly to the nest. Well, an empty nest for us meant it was now safe to weed that otherwise undisturbed flower bed. When my wife removed the nest, carved into the surrounding wood mulch and consisting mostly of down and finer pieces of wood mulch at a depth of 3-4 inches, she discovered underneath the nest lining pieces of egg shell, some half shell and many other smaller pieces. They were not on the surface of the nest lining, but a good 3 inches below, certainly not visible from the surface. It almost appears as if the mallard hid the egg shells underneath the lining. We are clueless.
Any comments, please?

Same thing happened to me and I am clueless too. No signs that the ducklings hatched nor did I ever see them.

 

[Lynne77]

We had a mallard nest near our back door (not ideal) but I could watch through a window without disturbing them so it was kind of awesome. I was checking frequently so I saw that they were hatching this weekend (adorable baby bird beak peaking out under mama). By early the next morning they were already gone, and our nest looks just like yours. I would bet that they hatched and disappeared to the creek as you assume and you just didn't see them.

 

[Woody Thrush]

Dear Lynne77,

I should hope so. Since then I have seen a mallard hen with her ducklings down on the creek and I'm hoping that they are from the nest that I saw and described to you weeks ago that had been next to our house in the lilac undergrowth. We've since removed that spent nest (with its broken egg shells way down under the nest as described) and proceeded to weed the flower bed that we had deferred to the mallard's nest.

On a positive, undeniable note, our clutch of 5 chickadees fledged successfully. I cleaned out their nest box one day after their departure and a pair of house wrens began nesting there within days of the chickadees flight into the woods down along the creek. I haven't yet checked to count the number of the wren's clutch. I don't want to disturb the mama wren by my putting a ladder up to the box to peek into.

Our bluebirds successfully fledged from their box (4 juveniles) and have returned as a family to begin yet another hatch. This is the first season where after about 2 weeks after fledgling the whole family returned with mom and pop to begin anew and it was a delight to watch the juveniles as the veteran bluebirds built their new nest whilst the juveniles begged from the nearby tree limbs. After the first 2 days of begging the juvenile bluebirds were foraging for their own in the lawn below the nest box as mom and pop bluebird went about their business of building a new nest. As of this morning there are now 4 new bluebird eggs in that box soon (if not already) to begin incubation.

One box of veteran tree swallows is full of fledglings ready for their maiden departure, and another nest box of a newer and younger tree swallow who guards her box without benefit of her companion male (where did he disappear to?) has laid 5 eggs. In our arbor a pair of cardinals have built their nest and as of this morning there are 4 eggs there. I've been on guard against the brown head cowbirds. I've chased them off several times this season and hope not to encounter one of their eggs in the cardinal nest.

So, Lynne77... We can't say for sure whatever happened in our mallard nest, but Sue and I are enjoying a wonderful season of new song birds with plenty to watch and be grateful for. We are simply bird watchers. You do the same and have fun!