Keith said a few days ago, "I so want to get the bird thing. I so don't." Keith, I know just what you mean. For a very long time I didn't get the bird thing either. When I was an architect, we did a big renovation at the Bronx Zoo's World of Birds. I loved working at the zoo, loved the people there, but the birds themselves didn't interest me. I have friends who are big birders, go on birding vacations, keep life lists, and I always thought they were a little odd. Then... Well, I'm not sure. Except I started sitting by the river one fall, and my first winter the buffleheads came by, looking like black-and-white rubber duckies. Then that spring there were duckings and goslings, and like baby anythings, baby birds are cute. No matter how conscientiously you try not to anthropomorphize, come on, they're CUTE. Then I started paying attention to the birds in the garden at the Rancho. And bingo, here I am, a full-fledged, as it were, birder. Except I don't keep a life list. But I do get excited when I see a new bird I haven't seen before.

All of which is to say, Urban Naturalist, who now has a blog of his own, reports that his wife saw a female mallard swimming with eleven ducklings. I'm hoping my count was off, though I could swear there were twelve. But the point is, they do appear to all be hers, and my recent duck research shows mallards can lay and hatch up to 13 eggs. So she's way at the end of the bell curve, but that's one fertile duck.