Wildlife artist Laurie Carver-Estes was out in her backyard one evening when she noted the most unusual sight – a duckling inside one of her birdhouses accompanied by an owl!
Laurie, who lives in Jupiter, Florida, could hardly believe it, but she had a camera handy and took a few great shots of the unlikely feathered pair.
She guesses the duckling was hatched by the owl after a female duck left its egg in the nesting box. Her family had seen a female Wood Duck several weeks earlier remove a duck egg from another nesting box after it had been raided and put it in this box. “[W]e believe she put it in this box and the owl hatched it,” she wrote on Facebook.
A little bit later, the baby duck was “in the hole by itself, calling for the parents”. The duckling waddled into the woods to the nearby pond. Said Laurie, “We believe they heard each other because it suddenly left the box and made a beeline for the back fence and our neighbor’s pond where the woodies have been hanging out.”
The pond is in a secluded, private area but Laurie told a local news channel she believes the duckling was reunited with its parents. She added that the photo will probably end up being “the most unique of my whole life.”
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