A Mother Duck Defending Her Young

A few years ago I was living near a creek which was pretty much the only sizable spot of nature that I had to enjoy, so I would try to stop by there often.

I was living in the heart of my city, and the creek was in a huge arena parking lot, which almost entirely covered it. Almost at the end of the lot, the creek emerged from a tunnel.

Pixabay

I enjoyed all the wildlife I found in this small area - mostly ducks, rabbits, ground hogs, a variety of small unusual birds and geese, but also a very skittish heron, an equally skittish turtle that liked to sunbathe on a rock until I came anywhere near the creek, a raccoon, and an industrious water rat.

I watched the water rat one day go down the creek a ways, then come back a few minutes later with sticks or grass and dive down in the water near the bank to where I imagined his home was. Then he'd re-emerge a few minutes later and do the same thing again. I watched him do this a few times in a row. I always imagined his home being like a little human home down there, complete with a table and cupboards and a refrigerator. I think it was the influence of children's stories that put those pictures in my mind.

The only animals I really didn't enjoy were the two snakes that were sleeping under a small, flat piece of concrete that I dislodged from its spot when I stepped on it one day. Finding themselves suddenly exposed to the light and air, one of them immediately took off. But the other one was apparently a little groggier because it just laid there for a few seconds longer before suddenly coming to its senses and taking off after its friend. I'm thankful to God they were fleeing and not fighting snakes.

I couldn't actually get near the water, since the banks of the creek were pretty high and covered with tall brush, but from certain spots I could make out some of what was going on down below in the creekbed.

I enjoyed seeing the ducks especially. I watched in the springtime as at least one mother duck navigated up and down the creek with her tiny babies drifting behind her. They kept such a uniform distance from her and each other that it seemed like they were kept perfectly apart by magnets. I counted off each week and took note of how the babies had gotten just a little bit bigger from the week before.

Finally after a couple months, the babies, although they still followed behind the mother just as closely, were just as big as the mother and looked virtually indistinguishable from her. I didn't see any that appeared to be male, but wondered if it could be a juvenile trait that the males only developed their distinctive appearance after a period time, and until then were protected for a time by them appearing to be adult females. I would have thought they were all adults swimming together if I didn't know better. But these "baby" ducks, still sticking so closely to their mother, didn't seem to know they weren't exactly babies anymore.

Soon after noticing that the babies now looked full-grown physically, I came across what I thought to be a few of them far down the creek from where I'd usually see them, moping around by themselves, and looking a bit like they were lost and not quite sure what to do.

Apologies for the picture quality, but these are the ducks in the story - the ducklings first as little babies and weeks later as nearly full-grown.

Or maybe they were just lazily lounging around with nothing in particular to do and didn't care that they weren't doing very much. They had almost a "teenager" or "college freshmen" feel about them.

Then not very long after that, I saw perhaps the same mother duck with a new troupe of tiny baby ducks gliding behind her down the creek. As she led her new set of babies along, her previous brood were nowhere to be seen.

One day a couple of weeks later, as I came up to the creek around mid-morning during the height of summer, I noticed the mother with her newest little babies near the place where the creek emerged from underneath the parking lot. This seemed to be a very popular area with the wildlife since the tunnel also offered them some protection to flee to. The shy turtle hung out here too on a rock he particularly liked.

The six or seven little baby ducks were excitedly darting around as they fed on something near the surface of the water that I couldn't see. The scene reminded me a little bit of schoolyard recess as the calm mother duck sat by watching over them.

But then I realized that the mother actually wasn't so calm. Suddenly she started to fly agressively a few feet at a time, and I saw that she was actually fighting with what appeared to be another female adult duck. I quickly realized, though, that the other duck was more likely one of the recently full-grown babies - and probably even her own, unless there was more than one mother who made the creek her home. Since they all looked alike, I hadn't been able to rule that out. As far as I'd known, though, there was only one male and one female in the area.

The creek bed was so deep and overgrown with brush that I kept losing sight of the mother as she flew around, chasing this other duck for a couple of minutes. Then I saw that there was actually not one, but two other ducks which the mother was chasing after.

The battle went on for a couple more minutes, and then the mother and the other two ducks suddenly stopped fighting, drew together in the water, and started to calmly sail off down the creek together in a little group. The tiny baby ducks, oblivious to it all, kept darting excitedly around the water's surface, not paying their mother any attention as she slipped away with the other two ducks.

I was puzzled. I had to wonder then if I'd been mistaken in thinking that the one duck was the mother since she'd left the baby ducks apparently unprotected. I even felt a little bit of concern for the babies. Why was the mother abandoning them, if she was the mother? I hoped there were no predators close by.

I watched as the little group of three adult ducks probably went at least thirty feet down the creek. Then suddenly one of them turned around, and the other two kept drifting on. Apparently assured that the two trouble-making ducks had gotten the message and would stay out of the area, the mother felt she didn't need to accompany them any further. I felt relieved as she serenely and unhurriedly swam back to her still feeding ducklings. Then as she was returning to the vicinity, she surprised me by letting out just a single commanding quack, apparently to get her entire brood's attention. She looked to me right then to be happy, even smiling, and sort of basking in triumph as she sailed up to the babies and gave that single quack.

But perhaps I was only projecting human narratives onto the situation.

Pixabay, Thomas Wolter. Example of projecting human narratives.

Perhaps she was only relieved and tired out, because she headed straight for the tunnel, and her babies immediately left their foraging and followed behind her out of sight.

I wished I'd had a video camera on my phone to capture that whole scene, but so often a memory can even be better.

The next year, the wildlife seemed to disappear from the creek. I didn't see any mother duck with babies. I thought that had to do with a spill of gasoline from a storage tank that had occurred quite far upstream. For that whole summer, there was some sort of equipment set up at the mouth of the tunnel that I imagined had something to do with the spill. Then I moved away, so I don't know if the wildlife have come back yet. In this very spot, the city is now planning a small park centered on the creek. That will be nice, but maybe some of the wild life will permanently move away then. I think I'll try to re-visit this little refuge from city life one day soon.