It breaks my heart to have to report this, but somehow Vashti and her brood of seven ducklings vanished from Botany Pond sometime after Tuesday morning, and have not been seen since.
I have no idea what happened. They were last seen at the pond during Tuesday’s morning rain showers, with the brood warmly tucked under Vashti’s belly. Now: no ducks—not a trace. The only one left is Armon, who swims disconsolately around the pond and refuses food. He has lost his family.
It was probably not predators: no bodies were found. I’ve ascertained that no workpeople were in the pond during the week. Either someone scared them away or they walked away, something that hasn’t happened before.
Whatever is the case, the ducklings will probably perish, as the nearest body of water is too far away for little ones to walk.
The members of Team Duck and I are devastates. The seven ducklings were healthy, Vashti was being a great mother, and even Armon stepped up to protect the brood. The invading undocumented drakes left the brood alone. Everything promised a great duck season, and I was looking forward to helping the little ones grow up into adult mallards.
That, it seems, is not to be. This portends to be The Year Without Ducklings.
Didn’t expect this – time will tell, perhaps they got confused or lost… perhaps stuck behind something, like and electrical box, or some such…
Oh dear. How strange. Hope they’ll come back.
Very sorry to hear this.
Coyotes? Duck-nappers? No idea. This is very sad. 😰
Oh no! …
I am so sorry! For me, as well as you, since I’ve become very invested in the duck family. Ever since you posted the link to the cam, I’ve been compulsively visiting it multiple times a day.
If the disappearance was due to a duck-napping–which might be the least bad alternative, since the family would still be alive somewhere–maybe going back 24 hours on the cam’s video record would reveal suspicious characters in the nighttime.
Is there any chance that another pair of ducks might yet breed in the pond? Or that a single female might yet come to the pond and fill the hole in Armon’s heart?
My latest theory is that a Great Blue Heron showed up (one has been coming on and off) and it freaked out the mother, who just took off with the brood. I doubt they found another body of water–to get to the one Greg mentions below, they’d have to cross several very busy roads. I fear the worst.
Yes, there is a heron walking around there right now, bold as can be—out in the open and in broad daylight. They are fun to see in their own right, but not when there are ducklings around.
Comment by Greg Mayer
Waterfowl routinely walk off with their young, traveling considerable distances over land. They do this because they have not nested near a suitable body of water, or because they find the nearby body of water unsuitable. My most extensive experience is with Canada Geese (which, of course, can probably walk farther than Mallards). Each year geese breeding near a pond next to my building bring their broods to the pond, stay a few days, then leave. This is a pond where many years ago geese would raise a brood, but they no longer do so– I don’t know why. Broods have turned up in a pond 500 m away, and then disappeared from there as well. I’m not sure where they wind up– there are other ponds in the area, and the adult geese doubtless know where they are. Another pond, several miles away, always has several broods of geese raised in it (and often ducks as well). They are not nesting in the immediate vicinity of the pond, and thus come in from somewhere nearby.
This doesn’t, of course, show that Vashti has moved on with her brood, but the possibility cannot be dismissed. There are ponds in Washington Park less than 1 km from Botany Pond; there may be other possible ponds. Since Vashti is individually recognizable, Washington Park should be checked.
Geese, though, can probably walk farther, and Hyde Park is made up of city streets, so it’s not clear to me if a “walk off” is a viable explanation for the ducks’ disappearance. Perhaps a duck expert could be consulted.
That the brood may be being raised elsewhere would not reduce the disappointment of not getting to see them regularly in Botany Pond, but at least they would be being raised somewhere.
GCM
Make Way for Ducklings — Chicago Edition!
Such sad news. I was enjoying hearing about them and seeing the photographs.
If they walked off wouldn’t Armon have followed? I presume he would also know the locations of any suitable ponds. Has he shown signs of going to look for them? It’s possible that Vashti could just walk back one day.
If there were no piles of feathers from an attack, I would suspect that someone has stolen them. It’s an awful thing to do, but at least if that’s what happened, they will be alive somewhere. 🤞
Is the video cam attached to a hard drive that stores video?
We will all miss them.
It would be nearly impossible for someone to take both mother and a brood of ducklings; I think that very unlikely, and why would anybody want them?
No, Armon would probably not have followed if Vashti and the brood walked off.
I’m afraid that readers should not hope that we’ll see the brood again.
So strange. Maybe she’ll turn up in another local waterway, or maybe she’ll return to Botany Pond. Greg is right. People should start investigating other local ponds. It would be nice to know that she found a new home.
But why would she leave, given all the food and love she was getting? Could she have been scared away by too much love, more activity than she could tolerate? Yeah. Maybe it was the Great Blue Heron.
I’m so sorry to hear this – sorry for you that you have no ducks to greet each day, sorry for us that we have no duck news to read each day nor photos to see, and particularly sorry that Vashti and her brood have no perfectly fine pond to be nurtured within.
If she left on her own due to some bird-brained whim, she may regret it or miss her mate. But who are we to understand such whims? May they be rescued by some other kind-hearted duck lover and placed somewhere suitable.
Sad news. So sorry.
I can’t remember – was this the first brood to be fledged @ the new Botany Pond?
No, we had Esther and her six offspring (father: Mordecai) last year.
Terrible news. Is there any way of going back through the duck cam footage to see what happened, or are there too many blind slots?
I am truly sorry to read this.
I do hope that the possibility that Greg has raised is correct, and that the ducks have found a new home.
Very sad news. I hope we hear about a Chicago duck miracle in the next few days. Botany pond and the ducks need each other.
Very bad news! Perhaps they walked off as Greg suggests. Or perhaps they are hiding somewhere?
There are many possible predators, unfortunately. Stray cats or dogs. Coyotes or foxes. Mink. Weasels. River Otters. One might think there is no chance of such (wild) predators; but we had all these and more in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. In our local small town here in Klickitat County, Washington, cougars are regularly sighted in town and many coyotes everywhere, of course.
We would sadly watch the mallard broods get smaller through the summer on our pond outside of St. Paul when we lived in Minnesota. In that pond, there were also underwater predators: Snapping turtles (some of them truly massive), northern pike, and largemouth bass.
Like everyone, I am very sorry to hear this, and especially vexed by not knowing what happened. As other commenters have mentioned, maybe Duck Cam has the answer?
So sorry to hear this, I too am devastated.
I am so, so sorry.
Nature is pitiless, but humans are not. We can feel the pain of our animal brethren and sistern. And I feel yours, Professor.
I am so sorry, this hurts. I hope the mystery is solved, and even more that they reappear. The heron does seem a likely culprit.
I ran the duckcam back about 12 hours last night and around mid-morning yesterday there WAS a worker (or possibly bio grad student) in waders using a long handled net to scoop up some stuff and put it in a bucket….
That’s terrible, boss. Pet loss is utterly horrible.
I have a dog/puppy whom I never let out of my sight/leash: the emotional liability of any other arrangement is too much risk for me, a former options trader with an understanding of risk. Its also why I have no (human) kids.
I wonder if the ducks will return after their… excursion? I do hope so.
best,
D.A.
NYC 🗽
Very sorry!