The Responsibilities of Motherhood
I glance out the kitchen window while drinking my coffee one May morning. What a shock to discover a mother with twelve off-spring marching determinedly across our driveway. I rush to get my camera.
Tomahawk Road is a dangerous place during rush hour for a family so short. But Mama Mallard is headed toward the creek four blocks away. Who knows where she has birthed this crew or how far they have journeyed already. I rush out to escort the family parade through the neighborhood perils.
Or maybe my motivation is to capture unusual digital photos.
Cars often round the curves on Tomahawk Road at illegal speeds. Mama marches forward with consideration only for the water ahead. All twelve ducklings waddle obediently behind her. Twice I wave for cars to slow to avoid this family. I can’t worry about the image portrayed of a white-haired woman in night shirt and slippers, with the 400mm lens camera, waving her arms and directing morning traffic.
A police officer pulls up and informs me that Animal Control is on the way. “I am just seeing them to the creek,” I tell him and he takes off.
The streets entering Tomahawk Road sometimes confuse drivers. Not Mama Mallard. She crosses to the south side of Tomahawk Road where 67th Street enters. One of the morning commuter cars waits. Mama hops up on the grass, but comes back down when she realizes short little legs can’t maneuver the curb. Two or three ducklings have hopped, almost surmounting the curb, but down the tumble into the street.
Two more cars are slowed as the duckling parade marches across Tomahawk ... then Mama turns and crosses Wenonga Terrace. Lower curbs on Wenonga Terrace let Mama lead her young up the curb, through a block of grass nearly as tall as the ducklings. Then the parade crosses the next street.
Now the going gets dicey. Mama’s GPS isn’t working. She guides her brood up a side-walk to a neighbor’s front porch. Up the steps she goes ... with massive difficulty the tiny ducklings climb the heights of the porch.
All this time I’m keeping my distance. By now Animal Control arrives and explains, “The laws don't allow us to help them out.” “I am only guarding them from outside interference – cars, cats, dogs, hawks, etc,” I reply.
Mama finally figures out that she has to go around the house...not through it. She sets off in the grass and shrubs, through the back yard and down the hill.
My husband, worried about my safety, has followed in his car. She’s headed down the hill through the yard. I calculate where she will arrive at the creek. The family is now away from automobile dangers so we drive to the Village Church parking lot. After a bit of a wait, they approach the edge of the creek near the bridge behind the church.
When Mama nears the rocks by the water she turns around and "counts" her babies ... calling all the time. Only eleven have made it. Mama paces back and forth quaking vainly. Coming down the hill, somewhere in the brush one baby has given up ... been caught by a predator or…. My guess is, sheer exhaustion.
Mama quakes vainly, then accepts and moves on. She has a family to raise. She slides into the creek. She turns and urges her babies to join her. Now a new dilemma faces the youngsters – how do they join Mama in the water? They toddle to the edge of the rock. They reverse. They search for an easy entry. Back and forth they go. After about five minutes of hesitation, they slide into the water one by one in response to her continued calling.
As Mama and the eleven youngsters swim south in the creek, Papa, who has been in the creek all along, joins them with an air of detachment. Mama knows her work has just begun. This crew of eleven must learn from her all they need to know to be successful Mallard Ducks.
Mama has her children safely in the creek ready for their schooling (all except one duckling).
I have ninety-eight captured moments in my camera.