My last photo essay about the grebe family was a heartbreaker, so I thought it would be appropriate this month to share an uplifting, heart warming story.
For the past two years, we have had a female mallard duck (we called her Ma Mallard) take up residence behind an old flower box next to the Ellis Bird Farm Visitor Centre.
Her location was fortuitous, as it enabled us to install a webcam near the nest and share her with the world via ustreamTM.
It was a ustreamTM viewer who alerted us when the young started hatching on the afternoon of Saturday, May 26th.
We checked the webcam repeatedly that evening and all day Sunday, expecting to witness her departure. But she sat tight and remained calm and quiet.
A stern and confident mother, she kept her little black and yellow babies tucked safely beneath her wings. By Sunday evening, however, the ducklings were becoming restless and more daring; they would pop out from beneath her protective cover and adventurously dart around the nest area.
Early Monday morning, I got a phone call with the news that Ma Mallard had twice left the nest, but retreated both times because contractors on the site were inadvertently blocking her route. I grabbed my cameras and sped over to the farm, constantly checking the ustreamTM channel on my smartphone.
Just as we pulled up to the Visitor Centre, the screen showed Ma making a final beeline from the nest.
By the time we ran around to the nest site, the ducks were nowhere to be seen. It was as if they had all evaporated into thin air!
We finally found her hunkered down under some low spruce branches to the west of the building.
We quietly and gently herded her back out into the yard and then watched in awe as she proudly waddled—her family of 12 little panting, peeping fluff balls in tow—to the pond.
It was a journey that took her through a patch of trees and tall grass, across the lawn and mulched beds, over the big boulders by the Wetland Centre, and finally out onto the pier.
Ma slipped under one side of the pier while her ducklings all stampeded to the farthest corner. Each took their turn launching off the pier into the water. When the last one had splashed down and motored its way out to its clucking Ma, we bid them adieu with a round of cheers.
Within a minute or so, they had disappeared into the safety of the tall grass on the far side of the pond. We all returned to our usual tasks, hearts buoyed from the honour of bearing witness to one of nature’s most remarkable moments.
Myrna Pearman is the Biologist and Site Services Manager at Ellis Bird Farm (www.ellisbirdfarm.ca). She can be reached at mpearman@ellisbirdfarm.ca