Well, I had other plans this month but nature has intervened and I am happy to announce the arrival of a new batch of baby mallards on March 11th. We started out with 11 but mom moved them on day 4 and returned with 9. I have no idea where she went or why.
Mom, by the way, is one of the babies I've tracked and written about! She returned to her home site and has been showing the babies the ropes of pond living.
It's very interesting watching the behavior of these tiny creatures. I saw them on day 1, just like mom before them, and it's amazing how they are instantly acclimated to the water and their surroundings. They zipped across the water as though they were walking on top of it. Tiny buzz saws making tiny wavelets as they tried to keep up with mom.
Her cruising speed is set at, hardly moving, but the tiny babies still had a hard time. They went all which-a-way and headed in the wrong direction from where she was headed and all you could hear were tiny peep, peep, peep. She'd let out a "QUACK" and they turned and scooted across the water in high gear.
Week 1 found the babies starting to do the water Olympics. This is the synchronized swimming that baby ducks do. Everybody in precise armada formation and then, one by one, they each took a turn diving to the bottom of the pond. They popped up several feet away from where they started, lift up from the water, flap their tiny winglets and then start the procedure all over again. Great fun to watch. I don't get much work done. I go down on a 10-minute break to feed them and end up staying 30!
I'm feeding them the same food as mom and Gee (who still pops in occasionally) of cracked corn and I picked up baby-type food yesterday at the feed store. It looks like Bran-Buds cereal but it's full of vitamins and nutrients the babies need.
Mom stayed with them for the first week, now she's off doing her own thing, again, and leaves the babies and then shows up in the afternoon. They are completely self-sufficient. They know where to sit on the bank so they're camouflaged (mom showed them), they know where to sleep in the thick bushes by the pond (again, mom) and they know how to find their food in the algae and "things" they peck at along the bank. They also know there's some lady who comes down daily (even the weekend) and brings food! They love bread too!
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