Out the upper window I can see a small wooden float on which a duck is nestled on a flat nest. Each day I watch the non-progression of a bird sitting on four eggs. One day the partner duck added lily pads like a lace edge to the float; no blossoms, just the pads. Day after day she sits and day after day he comes and relieves her. He sits in her place. At last the eggs hatch. As soon as the tiny bird was free of the egg- one birth a day- it climbs onto the back of the mother under the wing feathers. She allows them nestle between the feathers of her wings. It is crowded with four. The male duck brings food for all. As they grow they leave one parental back and climb onto the other. Then finally, one of them swims in the water. The funniest sight is when a rather large baby crawls again between the wings/feathers giving the parent two heads. [Imagine: in a car, driver and passenger, when a child hangs between the two front seats and it’s head is next to one of the persons in the front. That is the look of the extra head next to the parent.] The parent with the growing babies in situ sits lower in the water like a laden rowboat. One has to be disciplined not to spend too much time watching for developments.