As I farm, I learn more and more about the meaning behind common English phrases.  Today, “Like a Sitting Duck” became more obvious to me.  The above photo is what I found this morning.  Our two male ducks were in an area that had been covered in netting until last winter’s snowstorm took the netting down.  So I had strung yarn across this area because my understanding is that eagles will not go in an area with less than 6 feet of air space because of their large wing span.  This worked for ~5 months.  You do not know if a plan works until it fails sometimes.  The remaining duck was freaked, trapped in the pen where he watch his brother being eaten.  I had to catch hom (terrorizing him further) and put him in with a damaged female duck in the barn.  He is so traumatized, he was not even interested in having sex with her.

After this happened, there was another near-crisis.  Our two peafowl are never separated, since their hatching.  After I got the ducks situated I noticed the blue one was alone, and was calling to his sibling without response.  I started panicking that the other one had been eaten like the duck.  Or (because they sometimes go in the backyard) by a beagle.  So I searched around and found him/her (not sure still what it is) in the hay loft (where they have been living even after we filled it with hay bales).  Not sure why she/he separated from his/her brother and caused him such grief.  I am thinking about calling them Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  What do you think?

Finally, this may be the culprit in the duck murder.