“We lost our babies”, said Carmen O’Brien Thursday morning.

The “babies” in question were the four embryonic ducklings gestating in four large eggs found nesting Monday in the mulch behind the bushes of her Fiddlers Point home.

“I got up early this morning, and they were gone. I was so disappointed”, she said.

The empty nest showed no signs of disturbance. A search of the vicinity discovered no trace of broken egg shells and no sign of Mother Duck or her drake.

What could have happened?

As one Spoonbill commenter, Jackie, pointed out yesterday, in what may have been a prescient warning, “Don’t tell the raccoons”.

Raccoons love them, and also foxes. mice, rats, humans, dogs, cats, coons, opossums, snakes. And, if they were touched, the mommas in the wild often abandon them. Squirrels will absolutely eat bird eggs and baby birds! Squirrels are routinely seen raiding birds nests in tress and even stealing eggs from chicken coops. Coyotes, bobcats, stray dogs, cats, hawks, snakes, skunks, raccoons, possums, ferrets… … They will happily eat duck eggs. The most common urban predators of ducks and chickens are raccoons and hawks.

So, what at the beginning of the week was a hopeful story of a new family of waddlers in Marsh Creeks north-west corner, seems to have come to a sad end.