Bodyguards come in all shapes ... and species?

Females of most bird species are a picture of patience throughout the spring and summer. I say most because the brown-headed cowbird will find another birds nest and remove the existing eggs and lay her own, absolving herself of any parenting duties and dooming the host birds own progeny in the process.

While its a fascinating adaptation, it’s also quite despicable and has a deleterious effect on many songbird populations.

For the rest of the bird species, the mild weather demands a great deal of work and staying power. Even with the nest-building and incubation completed, the endurance required to be a diligent mother can be overwhelming.

This past spring, we got to watch the progress of a female duck who located a nest on our lakeside lot. Her subdued plumage blended in perfectly with the old leaves littering the ground by a shed and I hoped her efforts might remain undetected by the dogs, cats, and raccoons who might do her harm.

I also worried about her dealings with the skewed ratio of male ducks on the lake who are quite aggressive and competitive in their courtship attempts. In plain language, they don’t quit just because the female wants to.

It was remarkable to watch this hen casually elude her suitors with a series of deceptive moves and then settle in for hours uninterrupted on her nest while her suitors searched everywhere. The hen’s clutch contained a dozen eggs and my daughters learned about patience too as they waited for the incubation period of just under a month to be over.

When 11 of the eggs hatched and their mother took them back to the water, my concern did not abate. It was at this point last year that the overwhelming number of adult male ducks would descend on the hapless mothers, pestering them repeatedly while scaring and scattering the infants. It was not a pretty sight.

But a remarkable thing happened this year with this particular mother. The very day her eggs hatched and she introduced the hatchlings to water, one of the two big gray geese that also live on the lake just showed up to escort the young family. And it’s been there ever since.

The goose did not participate in any courtship with the duck that I saw, nor am I sure it would even be possible. I also never saw any camaraderie between the two in the month of nesting nor during the occasional breaks the duck would take to quench her own thirst (while leaving her eggs covered with leaves).

This goose has played the role of bodyguard ever since, never leaving the duck’s side. Its an amazing arrangement. I cannot determine if the goose is a male or female, but either way it cuts an imposing figure and has kept the amorous drake ducks at bay. Numerous times they’ve approached the hen, only to be run off by the loud, cranky goose.

I don’t know what natural mortality rates are, but it seems that broods in residential lake areas are often lucky to fledge half their original number due to the predation especially of neighborhood cats and marauding raccoons.

Thus I’m excited to say that these young are getting close to adult size and there are still nine remaining. I’ve often wondered if the two geese are the same gender since they never have any young. But it would seem in this case that a maternal (or fraternal) instinct remains and whether the job description is bodyguard or nanny, it’s been an interesting thing to watch.