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Why a Female Duck Was Spotted with a Huge Brood of 76 Ducklings

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rangerrebew:
Why a Female Duck Was Spotted with a Huge Brood of 76 Ducklings
Think of it as ducky day care
 
By Brigit Katz
 
July 26, 2018 11:13AM


Make way for ducklings—a whopping 76 of them.

Hobby wildlife photographer Brent Cizek recently captured an incredible scene on Minnesota’s Lake Bemidji: a single female common merganser duck, trailed by about six-dozen fluffy ducklings. As Sarah Mervosh reports for the New York Times, the hen, which Cizek has dubbed “Mama Merganser,” is not the mother of all the ducklings. Instead, she appears to be the head of a ducky day care.

Cizek photographed the ducks last month. In an interview with Jilliam Mock of the Audubon Society, he says that he wasn’t expecting to see anything particularly exciting out on the glacially formed lake that day—perhaps just a mallard he had spotted earlier—and had brought only one lens with him on his small plastic boat. Weather conditions were also less than optimal: a storm was brewing, and the waters were choppy.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-female-duck-was-spotted-huge-brood-76-ducklings-180969757/#OFkfElt1lUZFLRy4.99

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