Brent Cizek got up on the morning of June 27 to go to Lake Bemiji in Minnesota. Brent is a photographer and he frequents these types of places for the fauna and landscapes it offers but… Something incredible happened to him that day!
At the lake, about 150 miles northwest of Duluth, the photographer was surprised with a strange and precious natural miracle which left him perplexed. Brent was surprised by a mother duck followed by a large number of ducklings
“I couldn’t miss the opportunity to photograph something like this ,” Cizek told As it Happens , a CBC Radio show . And it is that just by looking at the photographs we realize that that little leg has won the mother of the year award unanimously.
The photos , of incalculable tenderness, quickly and naturally, went viral and the photographer himself had to come out in defense of their authenticity since many Internet users called them a montage. But the thing is … It’s incredible! “The photo just makes you wonder, how is it possible? How did it happen? How is the mother taking care of so many ducks? But it is totally real,” he told a radio station.
In the photos you can see how the leg is followed by more than two dozen ducks. Cizek excitedly recounted: “I saw the massive calf for the first time on June 27 while I was at the lake. I counted at least 56 ducklings that day, and decided to come back a few weeks later to see if I could see them again. There was more! “
The photographer uploaded the photographs to his social networks so that everyone could enjoy this magical find. He said that, in addition, it was very difficult for him to take clear images, he broke about 50 photos until he had the best ones and, in his words: “I was just praying that at least one turned out well because the waves were so strong that it was almost impossible to keep them in the frame. “
Ornithologists have been very surprised by the find and have explained the cause of this extraordinary situation
Ornithological authorities such as the National Audubon Society reported on this incredible finding, explaining that it can happen that a group of baby ducks that has been lost or that has not met their mother begins to follow a female specimen , and it is not a fact infrequent. They also clarified that a duck , on average, can have between 20 and 30 ducklings that follow it , but they do not have to be its young directly. Likewise, they explained, there is a phenomenon by which several breeds of ducks lay their eggs in the nests of other ducks in order to increase the probability that their ducklings survive. All a survival instinct. But they have not been able not to be surprised by the enormous number of ducklings that are observed. Specifically, in the last photographs , 76 ducklings can be counted! Isn’t it amazing?
On the other hand, Yale ornithologist Richard O. Prum told the New York Times that “a duck, in general, can only hatch up to 20 eggs, so Cizek’s discovery is an extraordinary sighting of a great mother.”
Scientists consider that what has probably happened is that the mother duck is an adoptive mother who collected several ducklings that were separated from their mothers for various reasons, thus becoming a kind of babysitter and creating her own nursery. It is very likely, they add, that he will continue to care for the ducklings until they are big enough to go on their own. One, therefore, supermother .
