What else eats ducks?

In my prior post, I told you about opossums eating our ducks. Well, opossums aren't the only duck enemies in the neighborhood. We've got racoons as well...apparently. Next time we build a duck pen, I would like it placed farther from our bedroom window. Bill and I are well aware of the warning quacks from the ducks. Since it's been so long now, I can't remember if we put the ducks away on the night in question or not. Anyway, something got at the ducks again. Bill ran out to see what was going on...we are quite aware of the warning quacks nowadays. He said that one of the ducks was on the other side of the fence and torn up a bit. He gently carried her back to the pen. Oh...my...now I think I am beginning to get stories in my head mixed up...
well...ends up that the next morning, the duck is in the Hall's yard by their garden...still alive...somehow. The girls and I were able to get her back into our yard and into the pen. I won't go into her injuries but suffice it to say that it was amazing that she was still alive and able to do anything! Sad to say that she wasn't with us come morning. :-( Not really surprised by that though. So now we have a dead duck in the pen. I figure that Bill can clean it up when he gets home from work. Well, by that time it was dark and raining so he didn't. Well, I would have liked to have been able to go to sleep and not worry about it until the next day, but I kept thinking that leaving the dead duck out there was just an invitation for all other critters to come and feast. So around 1:00 AM...in a bit of rain, I put on my shoes and raincoat, grab an umbrella, a shovel and bucket and head out to do the deed. Well, this is a rather icky thing to take care of if you ask me, so I am totally not looking forward to it.
I get out to the pen and formulate my plan of action.
I untied the section of the top of the pen above the duck. We had recently tied up the pen to try to keep critters out and ducks in. The plan was to scoop the duck into the bucket, then lift the bucket out. I double-bagged the bucket and lowered it down. The next part took a ton of willpower and emotional strength. Let me tell you, standing in the rain at 1:00 AM and attempting to scoop a dead duck out of the pen isn't my idea of fun. Scooping a dead duck out of a pen at 12 noon and sunny isn't high on my list either...else I would have taken care of this in the day. I guess not being able to see helped soften the situation a little bit. So I took in a deep breath and reminded myself that this was something that HAD TO BE DONE! So I lowered the bucket, and scooped the duck into it. That wasn't exactly easy, it was tricky to get that duck into the shovel...gross. But I did it!! YAY! I was so pleased with myself! I pulled the bucket out, tied the bag and took care of that!
I tied the top of the pen back up and thought that I should try to make the whole cage more secure. We had some leftover paving bricks near the cage, so I thought I would put them around the bottom of the chicken wire to help fill some gaps. Well, those bricks are quite heavy. So there I am at 1:00 AM in the dark in the rain throwing these heavy bricks to the other side of the fence! When trying to get them to just the right place in the neighbor's yard, I threw them as close as I could, then tried to use a pole to push them into place. Didn't work too well, but at least I tried. I was able to get some placed better around the front of the house. Hopefully my efforts would pay off. Well, no other ducks were eaten that night.