THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 10, 1994 TAG: 9408100045
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LAWRENCE MADDRY
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
IT HAS BEEN a treacherous season for the baby ducks on Bay Lake, and everyone in the neighborhood has breathed a sigh of relief now that about a dozen have survived.
A few months ago, there were at least two dozen new ducklings peeping behind their mothers, winding through the neck-high grass blades on the lake bank like a caravan of tiny jungle explorers. Only half of them survived.
The ducks lay eggs in sheltered places near the lake. Once, while walking along the first-floor breezeway of my condominium complex, I glanced down and saw a mallard mother sitting on her nest deep inside an arbor vitae bush.
The mother sat as very still, as immobile as the wooden decoy that balances on my hearth and stares blankly into the fireplace. I walked on without stopping, pretending I hadn't noticed.
Once born, the ducklings charmed the neighborhood as a fresh crop always does. An official duck crossing has been established on Lookout Road in a place about 100 yards from the bridge-tunnel.
Motorists observed the rules and stopped to give the ducklings and their mother the right of way, although sometimes drivers honked horns to give the procession a greater sense of urgency. It did little good. The brown ducks take their time, particularly when the baby ducks are fluff balls about 2 inches high. The stragglers do their best to keep up, each fluttering miniature wings, like a man flailing his arms while running to catch a train.
Sometimes the ducks in the procession go halfway across and then think better of it. Then the mother and brood skitter back to where they came from, only to start out again toward the other side. This has an unsettling effect on motorists - particularly in the morning, when the drivers are headed for work.
When the ducklings were very young, drivers who braked for the procession were treated to a rare show as the parade reached the cement curb on the lake side. The curb was easily crossed by the mother, But it was a forbidding obstacle for many of the ducklings behind her.
Half the brood - those strong of leg and limb - hopped atop the curb and followed behind their leader in single file. But the weaker ducklings, unable to make the initial jump, were a study in determination and frustration. They jumped repeatedly at the curb, then fell down, their desperation increasing as the sound of the quacking mother receded in the distance.
Frantic, they skittered below the curb, bills raised as they search with BB eyes for slumps in the curb that were negotiable. Finding the height the same everywhere, they returned to the place where the mother had hopped the curb and attacked it once more, falling backward, tumbling over on their sides, always trying again, until one by one they scaled the concrete precipice and raced across the grass to join their brethren.
That curb was the least of the dangers faced by the baby ducks. Hawks, which occasionally circle the lake, pick off a few each season. But the great danger to the ducklings is turtles. Some of the lake turtles weigh more than 10 pounds and have shells twice as large as a Frisbee. With primal cunning, they wait patiently for just the right moment to grip a soft duckling in their jaws and swallow it.
Several times when walking with my cocker, Mabel, along the lake's edge, I have heard a menacing rustle of water. The sound was as heavy as that made by a large brick dropped into the lake, followed by a muddy clouding of the water. A turtle that had been lurking there was slipping away.
There are plenty of turtles in Bay Lake. Stealthy critters, too. Sometimes you see a bubble at the water's edge and know one is there. And from time to time, you see one poking its nose to the water's surface, where it glistens like a wet black prune.
So it's a tiny miracle that about a dozen of the ducklings have survived the season. The new ducks are about half the size of their parents now - much too large for a turtle to swallow.
In the evenings, parents take very young children by the hand and lead them down to the lake, carrying sacks of bread scraps. The rubber-legged toddlers - some wearing diapers beneath their T-shirts - identify with the younger and smaller ducks. And, I have noticed, nearly always feed them first. by CNB