When a ridiculously long and orderly line of mergansers swim along the lakeshore, the lyrics to “Before the Parade Passes By” from Jerry Herman’s “Hello, Dolly!” pops into my head. The mother red-breasted merganser, after incubating her eggs for from 28-35 days, clearly has got to get some life back into her.
So with her held high, she is ready lead the parade. Understandably, she appears to a bad case of bedhead and looks a little frowsy. But hey, she is caring for a brood of 20 — maybe even 30 or more — adorable baby mergansers.
They probably aren’t all hers.
Female waterfowl somehow instinctively know not to “put all their eggs in one basket.” Or nest. From time to time they lay an egg or two in the nest of another hen.
This behavior could be considered a reproductive insurance policy. If a female’s nest is destroyed, at least a few of her offspring have a chance at survival.
But egg dumping does not explain it all. An excessively long parade of baby birds is considered a “crèche.” Apparently, some mature merganser females have such strong maternal instincts, they simply adopt the stray baby birds that get separated from their own parents.
And sometimes one hen will take on the broods of other hens — sort of like an avian daycare — so the others can feed or rest.
This time of year while there’s still time left, that mature merganser hen, like Dolly Levi, ”is ready to move out front” because “life without life has no reason or rhyme left.”
