---Birds are known to abandon their babies if they smell human scent on them.-- is a myth. Most birds have a very poor sense of smell. May birds have been handled by humans and the parents take them back without any fuss.

Are the ducks feral, thoroughly used to people, or completely wild? I am thinking if they are nesting in your perennial garden, they are quite used to being around humans.

Do you have a swimming pool? In my area, yards with pools have attracted ducks and their young. Very messy situation, and the birds are protected by law from harassment. The owners had to wait them out. The ducks loved the yard so much, they returned three years in a row, if I recall correctly. The owners may have resorted to a pool cover.

Another myth is that you have to approach the nest without making any sound. It's better to let the bird hear you in advance, so that it has an opportunity to leave the nest in good time.

If the ducks have already laid eggs, it will be 28 days before they hatch, but then the ducklings don't stay in the nest to be raised. If they haven't laid eggs, I would go ahead and start working in the bed and let the ducks decide whether they will be comfortable with that or need to find a new nest site.

If they haven't laid eggs yet I would do whatever it takes (including temporary fencing) to see that they do not.
If there are eggs already I am such a softie that I would abandon the bed until the babies leave.
Heck, I once fenced off an entire portion of my yard so that my dogs couldn't get to a poorly situated robin's nest. I swear, that last day before the babies left the nest they looked right at me in thanks!

We're softies too, so I would leave it be and enjoy your new residents. It would be hard to leave the bed in its 'un-cleaned-up' state, but that's probably what I would do.

If you get a little crop of ducklings, we want pictures!

That is very sweet Cearbhaill!

The federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 states that it is illegal to:

"pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture or kill, possess, offer for sale, sell, . . . etc., any migratory bird, . . . or any part, nest, or egg of any such bird."

So technically it is illegal to disturb their nest. But, sometimes I'm sure that is problematic. What if this bed were a veggie garden, and you needed to grow food there to feed yourself or your family?? And what about all the trees people take down that could contain a nest?

I was working at a commercial property I manage the other day, pruning and clearing vegetation back away from the building. Chop chop chopping away at this Mountain Laurel, pulling out Bittersweet vines, almost done, and I was very surprised to look over and see this!

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I am very worried that I've exposed the nest, so I put propped some large branches in the back of the shrub to add cover to the nest. Yesterday I was over at the building and saw the Robin perched on the edge of her nest. Thank goodness she hasn't been abandoned her nest.

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Terrene, congratulations for your great "robin" rescue!

A few weeks ago I found a robin's nest about 3 feet up in a male holly. Sadly, there were feathers on the ground and around the nest ---- was the mother was attacked, I feared?

I left the nest alone for many days but did check on it. Never saw a mother bird or any movement of the eggs. Several days later I found that one of the eggs had been pecked open. The other two were still in their same original spot. I finally removed the nest and put it in a pot on our back deck.

Sad situation. I'm not sure what to do about the eggs themselves.

Molie