S. M. Garver - Wildlife Photos - Mallard photos page 5 of 7

This is the second 2015 family story. They mostly lived in the stormwater drainage canal near the Sam's Club parking lot, so I didn't see them as often as Minnie's family. The kids and momma mallard of this family tried to eat my shoes and my leg!

Page 5 of 7
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I first met this family on May 20th and there were 8 little ones. I love the little duck butt in the upper-left of this image.

Three days later while returning from my morning exercise, I stopped at the top of the hill long enough that the mother mallard saw me and came scampering up the hill hoping for food. Her little ones followed. I backed onto the pavement. They not only followed me, the little ones began pecking at my (mostly green) shoes, shoelaces, and socks. One little one even climbed right over the laces of my shoe. They are so lightweight that had I not seen it happen I would have not known it happened. It was like having a cottonball walk across my foot.

Here are a couple of ducklings later that day. Not sure if this one was tired or it was just squinting because of the bright sun.
[Another view from above looking down into the stormwater drainage canal. Two ducklings are in the water. One is bent down taking a drink of water. The other is looking up at the camera with its eye partially closed. ]

Now down to six ducklings, the family comes into the Sam's Club parking area to mooch food. Just on the other side of the mulch in the upper left of the image is the hillside of the stormwater drainage canal.
Apparently, these ducklings hatched near here because the worker at the gas pumps (near this area of the parking lot) told me this mallard originally had ten ducklings. She apparently had already lost two by the time I first saw her.
[Momma mallard and one duckling stand on the white stripes marking the parking spots while the other five ducklings either stand or preen themselves on the concrete. This area is at the edge of the parking lot and mulch is seen at the top of the photo. ]

Here they are the next morning. Mother ducks teach their young to hide in the taller grass by the water which is why they are huddled together for a little nap.
[Momma mallard stands in the water and it bent to the surface to drink. The low water levels have created a mini-island of dirt in the middle of the canal. There is open space/dirt on the mini-island, but the ducklings are in the grass on the right side of the mini-island. ]

On June 15th, I saw two adult females at the pond behind the hotel. One came under the fence to my side and walked toward me as if she recognized me. I thought at first it was one of the two girls from the family on the prior web page, but after checking my photos I realized it was the mother duck from this family. The next day she and her remaining five ducklings (she'd lost another one since I last saw her family) came to the pond. While she was able to fly and that's probably how she found the pond in the first place, the ducklings were just starting to grow feathers and thus had to walk to get here. It's not only close to a quarter mile from where I normally saw them, it also required walking across several parking lots and a street to get here. The drought had significantly impacted vegetation in the area which may have been why the mother brought them so far. She returned them to her regular terrain the next day.

The mother and one of her ducklings in the pond behind the hotel.
[The duckling swims to the right of the momma near the edge of the pond. There is tall grass to the right of the duckling. ]

On June 22nd, the unexpected happened. While returning from my exercise route, I saw a number of different birds in the stormwater drainage canal, so I immediately returned to the area after fetching my camera. The mother of the family on this page saw me at the top of the hillside and came up from the water with her kids behind her. After taking some photos of them, I returned my attention to the new ducklings from another family I had seen in the water. This family didn't return to the water as I expected they would. They remained behind me which I noticed after I felt something on the back of my calf. When I looked at that area, I noticed some dirt there. Momma mallard just stared at me as I looked down at my leg and then at her. Apparently, she had decided the mark on the back of my calf might be food and went for it leaving the dirt aftermath of her eating attempt. The kids who had pecked at my shoes in the past were too short to reach that high, so it had to have been her.

Four of the five ducklings walk by my foot before Momma tried to eat me.
[At the bottom edge of the photo is part of my shirt and my two shoes and I held the camera toward the ground. The two nearest ducklings are within six inches of my shoes. ]

They finally returned to the water and swam away.
[The five ducklings swim away from the camera just ahead of their mom. ]

Later in the summer while watching this family, I learned that mallards lose their flight feathers each year just like the geese do. There were no further attempts to eat me, although they did come up the hillside each time they saw me there. Images of Momma regrowing her feathers are in the Ducklings-to-mallards time-progression photos.

Continue to page 6 to learn the differences between momma mallards.

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