Duck season begins tomorrow. And now, the orange-clad hunters can even hunt on Sunday! Dear God! Anyway, I've had a bunch of Mallard and Black Ducks all summer long, so I want to share them with you before someone makes dinner out of them!

Early in the summer I had a mother and eight (count 'em) eight babies visiting. Here are two of the grown babies:

Later in the summer, another mother duck paddled by with five little sweet chicks in line. I was worried they were a late group and they wouldn't be big enough and strong enough to fly away for the winter, so I started putting out some cracked corn (crack for ducks, really!) Here are four of them recently...almost grown...with mother duck looking on:

The mother ducks are really something, always keeping a watch out for the babies. Here's that beautiful mother duck on patrol:

So maybe if the ducks just hang around my beach for the next little while, they won't be someone's Thanksgiving dinner!

Thanks and good luck.