Nathan quacks around and finds out.
Martha is my oldest friend in Wānaka. While I fish, we talk about the weather, the annoying tourists, the falcons who think “they’re all that”, the river levels, entomology. We share inside jokes, we fight, we make up. We have had hundreds of lunch dates at the Albert Town campsite. Our relationship has never gone beyond that—Martha scares the hell out of me. Like a man with a photo of himself on his home screen or a woman with a dagger tattoo, she’s not built for long-term relationships.
For several months of the year, Martha and I are inseparable, besties. There is a posh dude she likes to hang out with in autumn; he’s more debonair than I am in my camouflage fishing attire. But it’s not serious and never lasts for long. And Martha and I only see each other sporadically in the winter, with fishing season closed and Martha pursuing her “winter hobbies”, as she calls them. Come spring, though, we’re back together every day. Until eventually, inevitably, Martha’s darkness returns.
One day, she is all laughs; the next, she is quite literally trying to kill me. I can spot those days from twenty metres away. Martha is on her toes like a boxer. She presses forward. She may or may not have a tent peg under her wing like a prison shank. The Martha I love is gone. She is now Mother Duck.
For years, Martha saw her Albert Town friends start the season with up to a dozen ducklings only to find that, sadly, only a few ever made it to adulthood. Danger was around every bend. Ferrets. Stoats. Possums. Rats. Unleashed dogs with a taste for duck liver pâté. When threatened, a typical mallard hen will rush to protect her ducklings by herding them to safety while screaming for help. Not Mother Duck. Mother Duck believes the best defence is offence. She looks natural selection in the face and says, not today.
We need your help
READ MORE
Yes, @#$% you for questioning Mother Duck’s parenting or even glancing in her direction, or the direction of her children. Mother Duck is on you before you’ve spotted a fleck of yellow down. She’s coming for you, ready to throw wings; if you want to avoid a tussle, you’d better retreat, fast. Human, dog, campervan, boat, me, it doesn’t matter, Mother Duck will fight it to the death to protect her progeny. In turn, her unit of tiny fluffballs know the drill: Momma’s gone to kick some ass again, time to swim out into the river, huddle up and wait for her return without a squawk. Just as they were taught.
It works. Come summer, the other mothers cruise around with only two or three teenagers, just relieved to not be empty-nesters. Not Martha. Year after year, she proudly swims by with ten or more well-behaved and healthy offspring, a beacon of hope in Duck Nation. And if scientists are to be believed about this evolution thing, I hope Martha’s childrearing approach proliferates as more and more of her ducklings survive to grow up and spread the word of Mother Duck’s bold parenting style.
Still, I sure am happy when the shenanigans are over and I have my friend Martha back for a while.
NATHAN WEATHINGTON
IMAGE: Quack off! Childrearing, Martha style. PHOTO: Bernard Spragg
