I went back an hour later, and was surprised to see a pair of geese in the pool too. This time, no crows in sight. And the geese and ducks were cohabiting with ease. At one point while momma duck was watching the mass of her brood, one lone duckling swam close to one of the geese. The goose, a giant to the fuzzy duckling, gently put her beak into the water making a small ripple toward the duckling as she gyrated her neck in a movement that told the duckling to swim back toward his mother. This was nice to see a teaching moment by another species! Consequently, when I left the pool that hour, I didn’t fear for the ducks. I felt that the presence of the geese could be helpful in keeping the crows from circling and taunting the mother and her charges |
Today I held a baby duckling in my hands. Briefly. Twice. Rocket and I were walking before 8am while most of the neighborhood still slept. We were near the Heron Harbor development, bayside in northern Ocean City, MD near the gated outdoor pool when a mother Mallard duck and her brood of five began scampered away on the sidewalk. But a sixth duckling hadn’t made it out of the street and was trying to jump the curb. At the spot he (or she) was trying, the curb was a huge fortress - for a few-days-old young one. It was probably about five inches tall, and he couldn’t make it over to rejoin momma. I sat Rocket down in the grass of to the side and told him to stay. Meanwhile momma duck continued to scamper away, five chicks in tow. I scooped up the left behind one, intent on having him catch up to the brood, but he was startled and tried to jump out of my hand. He landed upside down on the grass so I scooped him up again and moved him closer to his family, now in the grass quickly moving away. When he was in my hand I marveled at how fluffy and brightly yellow his feathers were. And my, what bright orange webbed feet he had! When I tried to help him the second time (after he landed on his back), he turned his orange beak against my hand in a futile attempt at defense. But he was so small and vulnerable; the beak was not a weapon. As he ran to catch up to his mother, Rocket and I moved across the road to give them space and watched as the now six ducklings and their mother stopped in tall grass around a tree base and rested. Crisis averted. Or so I thought. Since Rocket had accomplished his goal for the first morning walk, I took him home via the boardwalks along the bay rather than the street, so we wouldn’t disturb the ducklings. Once back at the condo, I grabbed my camera and bike, left Rocket and went back to see what the ducks were up to. It took me a few minutes to find them; somehow mom had gotten her brood on the other side of the gated pool fence and they were swimming in the clear blue water of the swimming pool. Earlier in the week, workers had come to ready the pool, which doesn’t open until next weekend. And on previous morning dog walks, I stopped to gaze through gaps in the fence because I believed a pair of geese had a nest in the grass. It’s a sprawling area with grass, lounge chairs, baby pool and two bigger pools. With limited access through the fence, I couldn’t get a clear view but heard and saw geese in the area. Perhaps the ducks had a next inside the fence too. Now that I could see the ducks inside the gated pool area, I felt relieved that momma and her ducklings were away from the street traffic, the bicyclists, the skateboarders, and the walkers with their dogs! But silly me, I should have realized there are many threats to nature’s young. Over the course of the morning and afternoon, I returned multiple times to check on the duck family. I was quite concerned when I saw the mother duck continually trying to climb out of the pool with her ducklings, keen to follow, unable to crawl over the lip of the pool. She was relentless in her efforts to have them model her behavior. She would crawl out and they would flop back in the water until she jumped back in the pool. She swam to different corners of the pool trying time and again, and yet the young remained in the pool. Then horrified I watched as a crow flew in and sat on the stainless steel handrail in the shallow end while momma and her ducklings swam near the steps. Another crow flew in and perched nearby. I know crows will kill ducklings and with six babies and only the mother duck, I feared the ducklings would be picked off. A few weeks ago, I watched a crow carry sticks into a tree across the lagoon from where we’re staying. Since then I regularly see a crow flying into the top of the tree which is level to the third story building. So there’s likely a nest and a mother and perhaps young mouths to be fed. But I’m hoping they aren’t dining on duckling tonight. I moved around the fence to different vantage points trying to see how mom was going to solve this problem of intruders, and I met another woman who offered to try and call the development’s management. But we weren’t sure if the ducklings were being taught how to exit the pool, or whether they were sure to drown. Should humans intervene? Add to this the threat of the crows on the scene, we wanted to help but weren’t sure what the best action would be. So we went our separate ways, but I couldn’t stay away for long. However, when I returned another hour later, I discovered a new concern. First off, I counted the young; and there were only four, not six. Without binoculars, I couldn’t be sure, but I took a picture of what seemed to be a floating young body a short distance from the mother. When I zoomed in on the digital camera, even out of focus, I confirmed it was one of the mottled colored bodies. And while earlier I counted four mottled colored young and two yellow, now there was only one yellow duckling in sight. I’d like to think the surviving yellow duckling was the one I saved from the curb, but because that duckling was struggling unsuccessfully to jump the curb, perhaps it had depleted its energy source and fallen prey to a crow? Perhaps mom’s repeated attempts to teach the ducklings had worn him out and he drowned? Of course, I’ll never know what happened to either of the now dead ducklings, one yellow and one mottled. But it was sad to see that within a few hours, the mothers’s brood had decreased by 30%. The other troubling thing about this scene was there were now three drakes - male Mallards in the pool. Whenever momma duck would crawl over the pool lip into the grass, encouraging her young to follow, one and sometimes two of the drakes would come fast after her pecking at her tail feathers. I couldn’t believe my eyes, why were these ducks bullying the mother - leaving her young behind in the pool, defenseless? It was almost too difficult to watch. By now, it had been about four hours since I helped the yellow duckling over the curb. And I had gone from being happy that the ducklings were out of harm’s way from human interference, only to run smack into the reality that nature could snatch up this mother duck’s legacy in a millisecond, while she was battling unexpected distractions. I couldn’t watch any more. I went back to the condo and googled “why male Mallards would act aggressively to a female duck with ducklings.” I wanted to know if what I saw was like male bears that kill the young of a female so they can mate with her and pass on their genes - more prominent than the progeny’s genes - survival of the fittest of course. Sure enough, in waterfowl and particular Mallards, forced copulation is common. Especially in parks where ducks congregate and more people bear witness. See this link for more info: http://askanaturalist.com/why-are-these-mallard-males-beating-up-this-female/ Well, I couldn’t stay away long. After lunch I went to see what was happening at the pool, and discovered two pool workers skimming the pool with hand nets. They said the mother had left her ducklings in the pool and one didn’t make it. I realized that’s what it looked like to them, and explained that she had tried to teach them how to exit and succeeded with some (Terry had watched three succeed earlier). The couple told me that she and four young were safe in the grass. For how long, I can only wonder. When I went back before dinner, zand looked from all the angles I could through the fence, I saw three drakes lying by one pool, gulls in another and no mom with her brood. Of course I’ll go back tomorrow to check. But I’m hesitant to know. If I can’t find her, I’ll have the hope that they are safe somewhere. And if I see her with only one, two or three ducklings, then I’ll have to grieve for the missing. If I see no ducklings and a female plus a drake or two, there’s no way I can know if she’s today’s mother. So in a way, it may be best to not know how things turn out. But then I remind myself of the tiny wolf cub we saw separated from his parents in AK last Summer. I worried for weeks about that cub, only to learn from another RVer we met hundreds of miles away, that the cub and his sibling (we had no idea there were more than one cub) were still safe and reunited with their parents. Fingers crossed.
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Mysterious clues at the bottom of a green box launch a son’s discovery of a father he never knew – a WWII pilot whose love and courage are woven with iconic historic events. Meet a hero; remember a time we must not forget. In the last month, Terry and I have been working on some family health issues and trying to figure out our next steps....we had planned to begin a 2,192 mile trek from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail, but fate intervened. Again we will have to delay our six month hike, and Terry is having arthroscopic surgery on his knee this week. But while he’s been trying physical therapy, I’ve been getting back into filmmaking. I reopened by company, once Dream Catcher Films, Inc. now Dream Catcher Films Entertainment, Inc. (check out my website dreamcatcherfilmsentertainment.com), and I’m developing a film with colleague and co-producer, Vicki Hughes. Vicki helped author Jim Kurtz with a book, THE GREEN BOX, which he wrote a few years ago. It’s a fascinating story about his search for the father he never knew...a father whose story of love and courage during his time in WWII is very compelling and will resonate with Americans on the 75h anniversary of the end of WWII - September, 2020 The Green Box: At the Heart of a Purple Heart is a documentary that tells the story of World War II bomber co-pilot Robert Kurtz, whose experiences in the conflict were emblematic but unknown. Unknown that is until his youngest son, who was only two when his father died, set out to learn about the dad he never knew. What Jim Kurtz uncovered about Robert led to a new understanding of the war, and a deep love for his parent. He learned that his father was a hero, and a man who, in his service, took part in legendary events. He learned about the depth of his parents’ relationship, and how that relationship may have saved his father’s life. Jim Kurtz wrote THE GREEN BOX, which recounts his search for his father, and tells the story of his father’s experiences: as a co-pilot, his crash and capture in Austria, his imprisonment in the most famous WWII prisoner of war camp, Stalag Luft III, his participation in the infamous winter death march across Poland and Germany, and his ultimate liberation by General Patton. The documentary weaves both stories; we follow Jim on his search and recreate Robert’s experiences during the war using both archival and contemporary footage, including re-enactments. And since the book was published, Jim has learned more about his dad, and met others whose lives were woven with his father’s. As the 75th anniversary of WWII approaches (Sept, 2020), the surviving participants of the conflict are dying; their stories are sliding into the mists of history. This film captures some of those stories, preserving them for future generations. It also reveals that it is never too late: never too late to learn more about our families or our history, and never too late to get to know people we love. The Green Box: At The Heart of a Purple Heart will tell that story in its excitement and beauty, and celebrate the lives of the “greatest generation” through the life of one of its ‘ordinary’ heroes. Robert and Jim Kurtzs’ story links an iconic moment in history, WWII, with the present. People tend to think of the ‘big picture moments” of the past often failing to see three things: 1. They are all made up of small, outwardly less relevant stories, of the individual people involved. 2. The past affects the present, not just in national or global terms, but in families 3. The stories of those individuals and their families help us to better remember and understand the archetypal events in human history… and we have to remember them, to encourage acts of courage and value and also to learn not to repeat the mistakes. Our film team encourages people to seek the stories of their families friends and communities, and help them see that we all contribute to history, and that key to essential events in the stories that make up our lives, both personal and communal, are acts of courage and commitment, made by ordinary people.
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AuthorFormer documentary film producer, wife and mother of one...I'm taking time off to see the US with my husband Terry. Here's where I'll write about our adventures RVing until the money runs out! Archives
August 2021
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