A Common Meganser mother-duck surrounded by a huge brood of 75 ducklings on a Minnesota lake spotted recently by wildlife photographer Brent Cizek.
Normally, a Merganser will only incubate a maximum of 20 ducklings. In this case, according to field editor Kent Kaufmann of Audubon, the mother had probably adopted several dozen strays that had lost their own mothers.
Mmf.
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I was reading somewhere that sometimes this type of bird will take turns babysitting while the momma birds forage.
I always get mixed feelings looking at huge broods like this – on the one hand it’s good pickings for any hawk that has its own babies to feed, but on the other, it’s sad that so many of these lil cuties will probably die before reaching adulthood, which is why there’s so many of them in the first place.
I used to get sad watching ducks paddling along the canal with an ever decreasing gaggle of ducklings behind them. Rats eat them, apparently.
used to?!
Ha!
Hon de’ Mná
Thats a tough job..id say its mall ard
Could it have slaughtered the other mothers?
It’s not Highlander…
There is only one!
My most euphoric festival moment was watching New Order performing at Forbidden Fruit in 2012 because I’d been a huge fan since I was about 15, wayyy back in the mid-90s, and had never gotten to see them. I grew up in small-town America and you don’t get actual good bands touring there. Watching New Order was so surreal, here were some living legends right in front of me, and I knew so many anecdotes about their lives, their quirks and their music that it almost felt like seeing friends. I admit, I cried some happy tears.
On a related note, my second-most euphoric moment at a festival was seeing Johnny Marr at Electric Picnic in 2013; he started playing ‘Getting Away With It’ and I let out a huuuuge whoop…in an otherwise completely silent tent. Marr started laughing. Bliss.