When I lived in Katy Texas, I would often spend an afternoon fishing at Mary Jo Pecham Park. It was decent, as far as fishing spots go. There was rumored to be a monster catfish lurking somewhere just southwest of the pier that jutted into the eastern part of the pond. I never did see the huge fish but once, I baited one of my lines, cast out and laid it on the shore in order to bait my other line and I saw a hundred dollar rod and reel whip into the pond, following whatever fish had grabbed my bait. On another occasion, as I was watching the waterfowl swim along the pond, one of the ducks just vanished beneath the surface and never came up again. Clearly there was something large enough to drag in a rod and reel and swallow an adult duck in that water.
There was also on this pond, a female mallard with an unusually large brood of ducklings following her about. Where the most I was used to seeing was five or six babies with a mother duck, this one had fifteen. Several of my fellow anglers and I surmised that this particular hen had adopted the ducklings from other hens who had fallen prey to the monster catfish in the pond.
As you can imagine, taking care of such a large number of babies was more than a full time job for this mother hen and, in watching her go about her tasks, it was quite evident that she had developed the organizational skills and the resourcefullness of the Duggar family on television.
When it rained, the mother duck would spread her wings as wide as she could and all of the little ducklings would scramble to take shelter underneath. The problem was that the area of the combined ducklings was greater than the area of the mother ducks wingspan...no problem, they simply devised an ingenious method of taking turns. When a duckling in pack pushed his way under the wing, a duckling in front would pop out much the way a ping pong ball would pop out of a tube stuffed with ping pong balls when you shoved one into the end. The evicted duckling would never try to fight his way back under the wing. Rather, he would scramble around to the back and take his place in the queue that formed back there. All the while the mother duck looked serene and, I would even say 'majestic' as she stood rock still with the rain pelting her and her outstreached wings.
Feeding the ducklings also required a bit of ingenuity on the part of the mother duck. Most of the smaller families of duck had no problem finding enough morsels to feed 5 or 6 young ones but 15 in the same group required the mother duck to be constantly on the move. It soon became apparent that she was a novelty and she quickly decided to take advantage of her unique situation and 'took the show on the road' as it were.
It took about two hours for this mother duck to parade her brood around the lake. And all the time I was there fishing, that's all she did. She would walk around the lake with her ducklings following her and, when she came to a family enjoying a picnic or a fisherman, she would stop and gather her ducklings around her and look up at the humans expectantly.
She was never disappointed. Corners were torn from sandwiches and spare hot dog buns were broken up to feed to the huge family of ducks. They were particularly fond of worms and fishermen were especially sought out to share in the responsibility of feeding her family.
Once, she came up and stopped her family in front of me as I was fishing. I wanted to test her resolve and so I just ignored her for a while as I fished. Her patience with me lasted about fifteen seconds and soon I felt a peck at the toe of my boot.
I stamped my foot at her....
two pecks on my boot....
I gave her a worm. She looked at me as if to say, "are you kidding me?"
another peck.
I laughed out loud...is there anything more courageous than a mother taking care of her children?
I upended both cartons of bait onto the ground in front of the ducklings and started packing to leave.
It didn't look like the fishing was going to be that good anyway.
