Spring Brings Babies to Wild Wauwatosa

The goslings were the easiest to spot – hard to miss in fact! I was riding my bike along the road through Jacobus Park and they were foraging through the thin tufts of unmown grass at the verge of the pond.

Mother goose stood tall while the little ones scrambled around at her feet. She hissed at me as I tried to get closer, but I was surprised that she didn’t back off or take the brood into the water.

The ducklings were a different story. I was out in the Menomonee River Parkway looking for Jefferson’s twinleaf (see my previous story about that) when I heard the unmistakable cheeping of many tiny hatchlings. The sound drew me toward a long, narrow pond, where I found a large brood of about a dozen mallard ducklings with their mother duck.

They were pecking in the new growth on the other side of the pond. I made my way around to their side, but in this case I didn’t get anywhere close to them before the mother duck led them into the water and away from me.

I followed the small flotilla until they got bottled up at a logjam, whereupon the mother doubled back. To her dismay, however, I wasn’t leaving. She changed tactics and led them up the bank and they all disappeared into the brush, still cheeping the whole time.

No, that’s not the end of the story. It took me a while to get back around the pond. Then I continued deeper into the woodland, along a well-used trail to where a slough filled with spring floodwaters echoed with the same chorus of cheeping. I took some more photos while they swam around trying to avoid me. Finally, the mother again led them off into the woods farther on.

Turns out there are a whole series of ponds. I suppose we could have kept up our cat and mouse chase but I managed this time to get very close and snap a nice shot of the mother duck with her ducklings nestled beneath her tail feathers.  I let them alone after that. But I couldn’t help wondering why the ducklings were never taught to keep quiet. I was led to them each time by their incessant cheeping.

The deer posed the biggest challenge, though I hadn’t set out to find them. After a disappointingly cold April, a beautiful warm day couldn’t be missed. I had to go out. I chose one of my favorite wilderness haunts along the Menomonee River just north of the end of the parkway, where it intersects Congress. Knowing it from previous visits, I was prepared for the swamp and waded deep into recesses rarely traveled by fellow humans.

I found the deer on the far side of a deep pool. Two alert adults stood quite still, staring, as I neared the pool. Since white-tailed bucks regrow their antlers every year, I couldn’t tell if they were two does or not. Three younger ones, no longer fawns, but still clearly juveniles, gamboled nearby, oblivious at first to my presence.

That didn’t last: a few incautious cracks of dead wood underfoot startled them. But they were more curious than afraid even so.

I’m not especially fond of the deer. They nibble my tulips down to the earth and rub against my young trees until they're girdled, killing them off one by one. They are particularly enamored of freshly sprouted aspen leaves, which is like deer candy.

The mallards and Canada geese likewise are not the kind of wildlife I’d prefer to see constantly, though the babies are cute enough. The truly wild animals are much harder to spot. It is reassuring to know that we have some of them, though, here in wild Wauwatosa.