TanBrow is a Good Mother

TanBrow had a twin sister named WhiteBrow. They were the only females in a clutch of 6 ducklings that came to live with us almost 2 years ago. Daisy Duck from next door helped raise TanBrow and her siblings until one tragic day when Daisy and WhiteBrow were chased by a raccoon into the street in a thick fog and got run over. The raccoon bit off all of TanBrow's tail feathers and she had a sore and wounded bum for a while. The wounds were cleaned and ointments applied, and she was feeling much better in a few days.

The fact remained that TanBrow was the only female left among her 2 brothers Lord Rouen and Alice, Mr. Alpha Interloper, and her other brother, Ralph. With amazing stamina, she survived and thrived as she accommodated the needs of the 3 randy drakes. Come April, she made a nest in the only safe place she knew, the cage where she spent nights as a small duckling. But her eggs kept being broken by the wire slats on the bottom of the cage when she sat on them. One day, the human did her a favor and carefully put a sheet of cardboard under her nest. TanBrow felt her nest had been violated, and abandoned it. She made a new nest in the ivy next door following the example of the neighbor Muscovy sisters.

TanBrow sat with dedication. Twelve hours a day she sat on those eggs, turning them and moistening them with saliva. Twice a day, she would cover her warm eggs with down and leaves and go dine and bathe. She could hear their tiny heartbeats under her breast. She could smell the good eggs from the bad. She would roll the bad eggs out of the nest. After more than a month of sitting on this new nest, 7 adorable ducklings hatched out.

How proud she was! None of the Muscovy sisters' nests hatched any ducklings. She was the only one with ducklings! All day Sunday, when her clutch was already a day old, she led the line of ducklings around to show them the lay of the land. She taught them to swim and how to peck and scratch. She showed them the place where the humans left grain meal. And she gathered them under her warm breast in the nest for naps. She was on top of the world; the envy of all the ducks.

On Monday, the human next door abducted her ducklings on the grounds of protecting them from the crows. TanBrow was beside herself with grief. She searched everywhere for them hoping they would magically reappear, but they didn't. She grieved for more than a week but learned a valuable lesson. With an indomitable spirit, she found a secret location in a thicket of ivy for a new nest. No one knew where she was, except Ralph, who came to visit now and then. She started laying eggs into her new nest while making herself very scarce. She only left the nest in the dead of the night, and only briefly. She learned a lot about nesting in this first year of motherhood.

Another month of dedicated sitting passed. Meanwhile, the abducted ducklings were finally returned to the flock but didn't get mothering from TanBrow who was busy gestating her next clutch of eggs. On the eve of the departure of the humans on vacation, TanBrow hatched eleven adorable baby ducklings. This time, she learned her lesson. She kept them carefully hidden in the ivy. But they had to eat, so she took them out when no humans were around. She taught them to peck and scratch, where the feed tray and water trough were located, and how to swim. The whole flock was proud of the baby ducklings and helped to protect them.

While on vacation, the duck pond was somewhat neglected. With so many ducks now bathing in the small pond, and with record breaking temperatures, the water level dropped. One day, the level was so low that the baby ducklings couldn't jump back on to the shore. They were stuck in the pond. They were in a panic and chirping frantically for help. A young child heard their cries and came to investigate. She saw their predicament and decided to intervene. She used the nearby net to scoop the tiny ducklings out of the water and squeezed each one of their heads until they died. She repeated the operation until all but one of the ducklings were dead. One tiny duckling kept holding his breath and diving under the murky surface eluding the net. He was the only survivor.

The next day, when a neighbor came by to do maintenance on the pond, he found the grizzly sight of ten baby ducklings with heads squashed floating in the water and one survivor swimming among the corpses. He freed the traumatized baby duckling and videotaped the carnage. The one remaining duckling is learning survival skills fast. TanBrow and the rest of the flock guard him carefully. They even spoil him. Even Mr. Alpha Interloper has taken the little survivor as his favorite even though the duckling is so small.

The surviving three daughters and three sons of TanBrow's originally abducted clutch are full grown, sleek and shining. The twin drakes are the spitting image of Mr. Alpha Interloper, but younger, bigger, and with striking sapphire wing stripes. The other drake favors the mother's side of the family. He has a splash of white down the front of his chest that makes him look like his jacket fell open to reveal his white shirt. The young drakes are learning survival skills from their father. They flank him at almost all times.

One daughter looks nearly identical with TanBrow cum the brow feathers. She is amazingly an homogenous chocolaty tan color, even on her face. Daughter Whitey favors her grandmother, the White Runner. Her face is a curious shade of dun and she has cloudy gray wings. Daughter Spot is the most curious of the clutch. She is a basic white with asymmetrical blotches of chocoalty tan and charcoal gray. The six youngsters don't yet know they can fly.