The Ducks On The River
A True Story about the Adventures of a Family of Mallard Ducks and a Couple of Friends Who Made Their Home on the Black River in Vermont
The Black River and its awesome Comtu Falls is an ongoing attraction for tourist and residents alike but never so great an attraction than since the ducks arrived, the ducks that stay all winter. It is a great place to hike along with its abundance of rock formations, pools, falls and the ever present wildlife, both flora and fauna, the loon, the hawk, muskrat, mink, the weasel, otter and beaver, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons and an occasional red fox with now and then a moose or white tail deer, frogs, toads, turtles and salamanders, the kingfisher, rock doves, sparrows, chickadees, finch, swallows and flycatchers, the red-winged blackbird, blue jays and thrush and the great blue heron and the owl, trout, bass, sunfish, perch, and salmon during the salmon run each spring; and there are the ducks, those wonderful and comical ducks.
This male Mallard is just one of several ducks that I know of that live on the Black River near my home in Vermont. The Mallard is one of the most common ducks in the world, found in North America, Asia and in Europe. In summer mallards live along the rivers and in marshes along the edges of both large and small bodies of water, lakes, ponds and build their nest in the tall marsh grasses or under fallen logs near the edge of the water. I've lived here most of my life and we've always had ducks around but not usually in this large a number in one place. It is here that the mallards build their homes and raise their young.
The female builds the nest and lines it with down plucked from her breast. It is a nice cozy, soft place to lay her ten or so eggs to hatch. The eggs are usually pale green to pale cream colored and are larger than a hen's egg but smaller than a turkey egg. For the past ten years I have been watching Mother Mallard set on her eggs and hatch them not much more than fifty feet from my office window. It has been a fascinating experience over the past few years.
The first year we had eleven babies, little mallard ducklings that grew up on the river just a few feet from where I live. The numbers have varied through the years from only one or two that survived to this year's flock of thirteen baby mallards that were hatched and nine that survived to live on our river. It was a very good year for the ducks.
The ducks have a lot to contend with, humans for one thing but also the wildlife that inhabit the river; muskrats, beaver, weasel, the raccoon that come to feed on its banks, the skunks and an occasional fox and the ferals, domestic cats returned to the wild; and there is the problem of food supply and the pollution, man's waste and neglect, sometimes just plain vandalism that endanger the ducks, shopping carts, car and truck parts, oil, antifreeze, gasoline, transmission fluid, rubbish, plastic especially, trash of all sorts just tossed over the bank and into the river. It not only endangers the ducks but other wildlife as well and it pollutes the water and in time endangers we who are human.
Mallards feed mostly in the shallow waters near the shoreline where they search for snails and grubs and a variety of insects as well as the seeds, roots and leaves of water plants. On land they feed on weed seeds, grain, grasses, (they love my daylilies) and other plants, the seeds and byproducts left in our harvested fields.
The ducks around here also seem to like to venture into my dooryard, crossing two lanes of traffic to do so. They often have traffic stopped in both directions for the DUCK CROSSING as they visit the people side of the street and they especially like to visit my yard when the daylilies are in bloom. A few folks have gotten a little disgruntled over it but most folks, well, they just stop and wait or get out of their car and usher them across a little faster. The ducks don't seem to mind and no one has run over one.
It all began the spring of 1999 with that first pair of mallard ducks who came to share the river with us. The Black River begins in Plymouth Notch in North Plymouth and meanders its way through Ludlow, Cavendish, Weathersfield and Springfield to the great Connecticut River and from there meanders its way to the sea. In Springfield, the Black River falls some 300 feet over the beautiful Comtu falls over a series of step cascades to the great falls. It is along this stretch of river and the pools of these falls that the ducks decided to make their home; these ducks had come to stay and stayed all winter. Others came to join them from time to time, stayed for a time and left and when autumn came and the leaves fell off the trees most of them flew south as one would expect they might, but not all of them.
It was early that spring that someone spotted and made note of a white domestic goose that had taken up residency, by choice or by abandonment that was never really determined, on the river just below the dam by the old Fellows Gear Shaper building. By mid autumn someone had captured her and provided her with a safer home on a nearby farm. While she was on the river, however she became quite the local star, popular throughout the spring and summer, not only with the local folk but with passers-by including those of her kind of the wild variety. At first it was a pair of Canada geese that stopped by to make her acquaintance. They arrived early one morning and stayed for about two weeks until they joined a gaggle of geese flying overhead and continued their way northeast to the Connecticut Lakes region and on into Canada where they make their summer home. They had honked and called and honked some more trying to convince the lady white goose on the river to fly with them but of course she hadn't. She stayed there on the river.
The geese had no more than left when the first pair of mallards arrived. It wasn't so unusual to see them come to the river, what was unusual was that they became so attached to the white goose.
They became like family, always together swimming up and down between the dam and the falls.
When Mama Mallard laid her eggs Granny White Goose did her share of egg sitting while Mama swam off of a bite to eat and a bath and she later did her share of babysitting when the three ducklings that survived first took to the water. We had started out with eleven but after a couple of weeks we were down to three who seemed to enjoy tagging Granny White Goose around. The rest probably became somebody's lunch but that is how it is in the wild. However, the three thrived and grew and became beautiful ducks, two female and one male, by summer's end. These were the original flock of five that stayed all winter.
Occasionally Mama and Granny would get in a bit of a debate over the raising of the ducklings and Mama usually won. Granny would go off by herself for a day or two but she'd soon be back, the spat forgotten and the little ducks tagging her around once more. We were all certain that once Granny White Goose had gone the ducks would fly south. They didn't and for days on end they seemed to be searching for their favorite goose. They swam up and down the river, flew above and below the falls, swam in and out to the cattails, reeds and wild rice and they called, and called and called but Granny White Goose had been captured and taken away to a safe haven and a more normal life for a domestic goose.
The leaves fell from the trees. The weather turned cold and the freezing rain and snow began to fall. The river began to freeze. What would happen to the ducks when the river froze? Where would they find food when their food supply was buried beneath four or more feet of snow, burrowed in the mud of the river bottom or beneath a solid 3 foot layer of ice? What would happen to the ducks if they didn't leave and soon? Winter came and went. The ducks had stayed and they had all survived.
Spring came and more ducks arrived. An occasional flock would stay for a week or two and then move on. It was the end of April when I noticed we had another pair of mallards that seemed determined to make the river their home. Now we had seven plus a goose but it wasn't Granny White Goose. One day about mid-morning a Canada goose arrived. He had come from upstream somewhere and he had an injured wing. He was caught in the swift current of the water as it moves over the dam and plunged into the churning waters below. I'd seen the whole thing and I thought for sure that goose was a goner. No, he survived; up he bounded and sailed along bobbing the waves until he made his way to the bank. Once ashore he settled down to rest. The ducks circled round and round and swam back and forth checking out this stranger in their midst. They didn't bother him. They just watched him. After a few days the ducks and the goose seemed to make friends.
This was an injured goose and the ducks seemed to sense its needs. They never harassed it in any way and would circle around it and stay nearby when people or other animals were near. It was fascinating to watch them.
Several times when I brought food to the river, I fed both the goose and the ducks; the ducks didn't crowd in to steal food that was within the reach of the injured goose. I think they somehow sensed there was plenty to be shared.
Once again it was pushing well toward winter and Indian summer had long since past. The season when birds gather in flocks and begin their journey south to warmer climates to escape the blizzards and bitter cold that is winter in the North Country. Brutal winter would soon be upon us but the ducks were still here, the ducks and one lonely Canada goose with an injured wing. I had already seen and heard the wild geese heading south as they winged their way across the late autumn sky but the ducks remained. That puzzled me and even worried me a little. The river would soon freeze solid, even the falls froze in the deep cold of a North Country winter. Most of the other birds had also already migrated but the ducks stayed and day after day with the bitter cold of winter drawing nearer and nearer they swam on the river, much to the delight of the folks passing by. The ducks now became a curiosity and began to draw crowds of folks interested in their welfare from miles around. Everyone was wondering when they would leave. Surely they would leave by Thanksgiving Day, but they didn't and they were still here on the river on Christmas morning. That was the Christmas I made a special Christmas gift for the ducks, corn meal mush mixed with dried fruit and a variety of bird seed.
I made the mixture up into half-dollar size balls and then took them to the river to feed the ducks. They were delighted and it was as much or more fun than opening gifts beneath my own Christmas tree to watch these silly ducks slip, slide and skate on the ice to devour their Christmas feast. What a delightful Christmas that was and I have been making them corn balls ever since. It is well worth the effort.
Now it was closing in on winter once again; I thought they'd be leaving soon, the ducks on the Black River who had chosen the pools above and below the Comtu Falls as their home. Certainly this year they would fly south but what of the goose who couldn't fly, what would happen to him?
The mornings were already frosty cold and river smoke rose above the river in dawns early light reminding us of what lay ahead. Most of the leaves had already fallen and the fields of the farms surrounding the village now lay fallow and still the ducks stayed. Every day I watched expecting them to leave the river and head south.
It was just before Halloween when I heard the first gaggle of geese honking their way in a giant vee toward Georgia. I looked up, mouth a gawk, to watch them and heard our river goose with the crippled wing calling out loudly to them as they passed overhead. Our river goose seemed almost frantic as it honked to the geese flying overhead. He swam to the middle of the river and flapped his wings wildly but he couldn't fly. His honking became persistent as the geese passed overhead.
I watched as the geese circled and came back to land on the river. It seemed a joyous reunion though the ducks didn't seem all that pleased with their arrival. The ducks soon moved above the dam and the geese stayed below the dam. It seemed they had come to terms with the suddenly slightly more than crowded environment there on the river. The geese stayed for Three days and then they were gone.
Folks around became concerned about the injured goose and a few tried to capture him, including Fish and Game from time to time but that old goose was cleaver and stayed out of reach. He'd lived on the river all spring and summer and his wing healed but he couldn't fly, he might never fly again. It seemed he was destined to live out the remainder of his life between the Fellows Dam and the Comtu Falls. He became an added attraction aside from the ducks and the ducklings that hatched each spring. Once again they drew a crowd along the river. It was the old river goose that folks around were most concerned about.
Poor old river goose, he seemed beside himself with grief after the other geese left the river. He swam back and forth and in circles for days honking and honking and trying to fly but that one crippled wing was just not strong enough to lift him.
I felt so bad for him that I took three ears of corn to the river and left them on the bank as a gift of compassion. At first he ignored my offering but when the ducks decided if he didn't want the corn they certainly would enjoy them, old river goose changed his tune and came honking and flapping into the crowd of ducks. The corn ended up in the river drifting south by southeast and who got to enjoy them I shall never know but those ducks didn't and I'm pretty sure the old river goose didn't either. After several minutes of honking, quacking and hollering the ducks flew back above the dam but by then the corn was long gone.
I couldn't help but notice how disgruntled and unneighborly the goose became after his family and friends flew south. He didn't join the ducks as often and they stayed pretty much clear of him as well. Old river goose seemed so lonely and alone. I wondered what would happen to him when winter came. I need not have worried. Nature takes care of its own. One night, just before Thanksgiving our goose died. How he met his death I am not sure but the next morning all that remained was a few goose feathers bobbing sadly along the river's edge.
As for the ducks, once again they stayed. Thanksgiving had come and gone and Christmas was only a few short days away. The river was nearly locked in by ice except for one small patch of open water below the dam and beneath the footbridge crossing the river but still the ducks stayed there on the river all winter long.
It was just before Christmas that someone built a storm shelter for the ducks and hung a wreath on it loaded down with popcorn, cranberries and other dried fruit. Yes, that's the spirit, I thought, that's what it is all about and I made up more cornballs and came bearing gifts for the ducks too. Once again the bags of cracked corn, outdated produce, scatterings of cereal and snack lunches left in children's school packs found their way to the river. Once again sleet and freezing rain, snow and the bitter cold winds came and the people still came, they came to feed and check on the ducks that stayed all winter.
Our duck population has increased considerably over the years. I counted fifty seven duck across the street from my home one day this last spring, on the river that run along busy route 11, right in the middle of town. In the early spring we usually have a few geese drop by for a short visit but they soon head farther north or west to a pond about five miles from here. It is the ducks that stay.
It's not an easy life for a duck on this river in the middle of this town; it is even dangerous but for some reason they seem to like it here. They've caused a few fender-benders, no one was hurt, but they've also given us a lot of smiles and a bit of laughter. We sure enjoy having them; at least most of us do, most of the time. No one seems to want to see them leave.
Living next to the river is a wonderful place to live and I love and enjoy the ducks as much, if not more, as anyone who comes by to watch them and yes feed them. They are delightful and funny and oh so much fun to watch but winter is coming once again.
A few days ago the geese flew south and much to my surprise for the first time in several years so did our ducks. They've gone; all but two and they may leave also in a day or so. I'll just have to wait and see. Some of these ducks have never been south. They were born here and have survived long and cold winters on our river. I'm going to miss the ducks this winter but spring will come and maybe our ducks will return. I don't know why they stayed for so long, so many winters on the river. I don't know why they chose to leave this year. Maybe they know something we don't or maybe the river is getting too crowded, too polluted with man's waste. Maybe the new road and bridge construction has driven them away. I don't know and I don't know why two have stayed when all the rest left. I may never truly understand the ways of ducks.
It has been an interesting adventure for them and for me and the other folks who have helped feed them and stopped by the edge of the river to enjoy their company. For now they are gone. It leaves me feeling a little sad and I think winter will feel a little colder and a little grayer without the ducks but spring will come and maybe the ducks will return and we'll have new ducklings on the river once again.