Friday Fun: “Mother of the Year Award” Goes to …

By unanimous acclamation we can now declare the “Mother of The Year Award” goes to … a Common Merganser Duck on Lake Bemidji in Minnesota – who takes care of SEVENTY-SIX ducklings!

Brent Cizek, a wildlife photographer, was blown away when he snapped his first photo on June 27 on Lake Bemidji in Minnesota showing a Momma taking care of 56 ducklings.  It shows how a truly successful family daycare center can be run.

Here’s his story:

Then, as he motored toward the boat slip, Cizek saw something remarkable: a female Common Merganser surrounded by more than 50 little ducklings. While Cizek watched, the little mergansers formed a long, orderly line behind their mom and began swimming away. The scene was too good to pass up.

“I probably shot 50 pictures, and I was just praying that one was going to turn out sharp because the waves were so strong it was nearly impossible to even keep them in the frame,” Cizek says. To further complicate things, he had to alternate between maneuvering his little trolling motor and quickly snapping pictures. “Luckily enough, just one picture turned out.”

Cizek says he has been photographing wildlife in his spare time for about two years and only recently became interested in birds. Last year, he saw a Common Goldeneye with 20 ducklings in tow and thought that was extraordinary. He had no idea ducks could care for so many ducklings—much less 50.

https://www.audubon.org/news/heres-why-mama-merganser-has-more-50-ducklings

Actually, she’s more likely to be “Grandmother of the Year” or even “Great-Grandmother” as this species of ducks, the Common Merganser, frequently have an older, more experienced mom take care of their duckling in what is called a crèche.

But a week or so later he went back and spotted her caring for 76 ducklings!  And Cizek’s Tweet of July 16^th showing a photo of the 76 has been retweeted over three-thousand times.

MAMA MERGANSER! I was able to track down the now famous Lake Bemidji Common Merganser that has an adopted brood of over 76 babies! I love the story that these photos tell.

Full gallery: https://t.co/wg8xioJBIG#audubonsociety #minnesota #bemidji #duck pic.twitter.com/c0Jycct4HX

— Brent Cizek (@brentcizekphoto) July 17, 2018

You can see them in the above Tweet, but you have to scroll down to spot the actual photo of the 76 – maybe 77 ducklings:

 Minnesota Department of Natural Resources area supervisor David Rave believes the leading duck is probably the oldest female duck on the lake.  And that most of the ducks on the lake are likely related.

Rave says that crèches of 20 to 30 are not uncommon (and he’s seen 30-40), and the first photo by Cizek of a crèche of 50 was mind-blowing.  But when Cizek went back a week or so later and found Super Mom increasing her crèche to 76 … well, that’s one for the record books!

The common merganser typically lays up to a dozen eggs at a time, but will often spread them out by laying them in other birds’ nests so as to increase the offsprings’ chances of survival – quite literally following the sage advice of “not putting all your eggs in one basket”.

That way if a racoon invaded her nest and ate the entire brood, their genes would still have a good chance of surviving from her eggs in other nests.

While a good number of the ducklings might be her own, they can’t all be hers.  That’s because it’s physically impossible for her to incubate more than 20 eggs as a max, according to Kenn Kaufman, Field Editor for Audubon.

Truly an amazing sight!  And I think it’s true – he really does love those birds!

I LOVE THESE BIRDS. pic.twitter.com/mCKJeiYMUh

— Brent Cizek (@brentcizekphoto) July 24, 2018

But since it’s always good to leave your audience chuckling, I thought you might get a kick out of one of the wise-ass Comments to Cizek’s Tweet:

 

75 other mama ducks are laughing their tail feathers off while drinking cocktails and watching Real Housewives….

— Darth Earl (@EarlLipphardtJr) July 25, 2018

75 other mama ducks are laughing their tail feathers off while drinking cocktails and watching Real Housewives….

Here’s a post from Cizek’s website featuring a number of photos of the ducklings:

https://www.brentcizekphoto.com/Wildlife/716-Lake-Bemidji/

RESOURCES

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/24/science/merganser-ducklings-photo.html

https://www.audubon.org/news/heres-why-mama-merganser-has-more-50-ducklings

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/07/26/photo-shows-female-duck-followed-dozens-ducklings/839553002/

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.4761081/mom-of-the-year-photographer-captures-images-of-mama-duck-with-76-babies-1.4761093

~  BONUS – LONGEST LUNAR ECLIPSE RESOURCES  ~

Since most of us will not have a chance to see the Longest Lunar Eclipse of this century, here are a couple of useful Links:

Countdown Clock for Total Lunar Eclipse

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/2018-july-27

Site for Live Streaming the Total Lunar Eclipse

https://www.timeanddate.com/live/