Wow, she deserves a Mother’s Day award! 🦆😍
What an amazing mom, Diana – maybe she runs a duck daycare. ❤️
Wildlife photographer Brent Cizek decided to visit the lakes of North Minnesota for some photos. He was hoping to capture some intimate scenes of animals in their natural habitat. But in the end, Brent had no idea how intimate he would get.
Cizek shares: “Well, it wasn’t the greatest idea as it was quite windy that day, and the waves were tossing my boat around in any direction it wanted to. I decided to carry on, knowing that it wasn’t likely that I would see anything, much less be able to take a photograph with the choppy water.”
After a ride with his tiny boat on the lake, he then steered it at the shoreline. In the next moment, he spotted what seemed to be a bevy. When he edged nearer, he could see there was a mother duck and a few ducklings. Only that the few turned into a few dozen.
He said: “As I got closer, the group decided to start swimming back out into the lake, and ‘Mama Merganser’ got out front, and all of the chicks got in tow.”
The super duck mama was being followed by a staggering 56 ducklings: “I found one image that was in focus and that I just loved, I knew that it would do good on social media, so I posted the photo right away. And it didn’t take too long until his image went viral on social media.”
However, at a closer look, it turned out there were even more. He was able to then count 76 babies with her, so she had picked up more babies along the way. It’s been remarkable. It’s going to be a sad day when they continue their migration.
Most likely, that wasn’t just a single brood, but a mixed family. But despite that, this duck is certainly the mom of the year!