Rock-a-Bye Baby
By Keith Michael
A Hudson River Park Mallard mother keeping her ducklings in a row. Photo by Keith Michael.
The pigeons are dangling from the trees and staggering through the grass, drunk on fermented Juneberries. While this top-of-the-summer reverie escalates with an abandonment of all social graces, a more responsible coterie in the avian world has one thing on their minds: raising babies
At this time of year, everywhere you look and listen, there seem to be toddler birds. Maybe they’re tucked in a corner on the sidewalk. Maybe there’s an explosion of chatter from a tree branch nest right over your head. Maybe there’s a “thwack” sound from a window box as you pass by. Maybe when you’ve finally caught a moment in your week to sit on a blanket on the grass in the park and read a book, a worried parent bird has scuttled right in front of you with their frantic child several paces behind screaming to be fed. Most of this is just more scattershot street noise amidst the deafening non-stop summer construction cacophony.
But the baby birds that usually get people to stop and notice them, the ones that actually seem to impel passersby to stop walking or jogging or shouting in an earbud conversation and involuntarily force them to get out their phones for a photo or a video are the ducklings and goslings. Like puppies or kittens, ducklings and goslings seem to be hard-wired into our collective definition of “cute.” Unlike the majority of baby birds, ducks and geese are precocial. This nearly unfathomable adaptation means that, though these youngsters need and seek protection from their parents, from the moment they dry off and fluff up after hatching out of their eggs, they are able to walk around, swim, and feed themselves. This utterly animated, independent demeanor wrapped in a plush toy, ball-shaped, big-eyed package is irresistible. Our “awwww” response is fully engaged.
Right now, in Hudson River Park, there’s a Black Duck family with two ducklings, a fresh Mallard family with eight ducklings, and two Canada Goose families with two and six goslings. If you haven’t seen them, rush right over there. The goslings are approaching that awkward adolescent time when their feet, their heads, and their growing wing feathers seem too large for their clumsy bodies. On the other hand, the ducklings may not be in that first blush of cuteness either by the time that you see them, but their pluck and diminutive proportions will still be intact.
Unfortunately, all is not idyllic when you’re a greeting-card-worthy duckling or gosling. That adorable coloring was meant for camouflage in the grasslands and marshes where they’re usually hatched. The gentle brushstrokes of their fetching first feathers actually visually blur them into their surroundings. A yellow gosling disappears in a yellow field—the better to evade a fox or hawk looking for breakfast to feed to his own demanding family. Our bright green lawns offer no hiding places. People’s insistence on offering food gaslights them into an unaware complacency, blinding them to the deadly threats of our cars, bikes, and off-leash dogs. I know of grisly fatalities from all of the above. That cuddly mottled pattern of the ducklings’ fluff looks like dried leaves scuttling among the lily pads at a pond’s edge—the better to elude a snapping turtle or a hunting heron. It’s not as useful on the open water of the Hudson River where the wake of a passing ship can create the duckling-equivalent of a hundred-foot tsunami to slam them against the river wall. There’s nothing a parent can do to protect them from that. Once they’re in the water, bobbing adorably like bathtub toys, think about how few places there are to get out and how far those tiny feet have to paddle to get there. Walk your toddler from the West Village to the Upper West Side sometime as a comparison. I’ve watched helplessly as ducklings drown simply from exhaustion. I’m sure the ducklings, and their parents, are grateful for the rocky edge around Hudson River Park’s Gansevoort Peninsula: a welcome refuge for them to climb out of the water and rest.
Landlubber birds have developed completely different survival strategies. Most birds build a nest that prevents their eggs from rolling away and provides a cozy spot for the parents to keep the eggs warm enough for them to grow into baby birds. However, once those eggs hatch, the babies aren’t “done” yet. Like an unbaked muffin, all the ingredients are there, but it’s far from being a muffin. There are still weeks to go for the haggard parents to transform these blind, naked, helpless mouths-on-necks into fledglings that can move around on their own and be taught to feed themselves. Worrywart me does ponder the disasters that can befall these struggling families: storms, baby-snatchers, illnesses, mosquitoes, and endless variations on all of those. But most babies do grow up to squawk after their parents for your enjoyment from a blanket in the park.
According to urban legend, pigeons have dispensed with all of this infantile falderol. They just clone themselves so that only adult pigeons populate our streets and windowsills. (Of course, this is nonsense, but worth a martini-fueled conversation chased down with a shot of Juneberry wine sometime.) In the meantime, watch for baby birds at this time of year, give them room, and wish them well.
