February 17, 2018: As I stare out the window at an all-day blizzard, and daydream of Spring around the corner, my mind drifts to new life and ducklings, and trips over this memory of a humorous encounter from two days before Mother’s Day, 2015.

There’s a spot on the southwest side of Michaelbrook Marsh, where, if we leave the open playing field and sneak through the long grass, and carefully make our way around the wild roses, we can observe a log that often hosts a Great Blue Heron using it as hunting platform. More likely, though, it’s occupied by bale of Western Painted Turtles.

On this day in May, however, approaching very cautiously, I was delighted to find a mother Hooded Merganser and her chicks sitting between a pair of turtles. Fascinated, I recorded the scene. When I got home, my imagination took over, and this fantasy played out. And, while admitting that I speak neither Merganserese or Turtleian, I’m confident that this is what was happening….

So the turtles were acting as guards, lookouts, really. Mom was busy just watching over her babies. Boyfriend Pete is, as is the Hoodies’ custom, nowhere to be found at this time.

Among the chicks, most, as is normal, were simply sunning and being good.

But Georgetta and Herman (on the right) were restive, the brother, in particular.
Click any image below to enlarge it in a new tab.

A couple of days later, this incident apparently forgotten, I observed the chicks having a ball in their bathtub, making as many bubbles as they possibly could….

~~ The end…. ~~

• Birds
• Humour & silliness
• Mergansers