It's the Tiny Things - The Duck Mama
The brutal beauty of the nature world
If you’re new here, every month I gather up a few Tiny Things to share. Magic can be found in the most ordinary moments if we take time to notice them. ✨🌙
Last weekend, I arrived at the reservoir park to meet my Tarot group.
It’s a small patch of wildness tucked into a Los Angeles neighborhood. The locals tend it like their own backyard. They plant wildflowers, care for the habitat, and make space for birds, butterflies, and dragonflies to thrive.
When we gather in a circle on the grass, nature moves all around us. A vast species of birds fills the trees. Dragonflies stitch invisible threads through the air. Butterflies flutter along the grass.
That morning, before our gathering began, we found a mama duck standing in the open with ten brand-new ducklings clustered around her feet.
She was calling out in distress.
Above her, a red-tailed hawk traced slow circles in the sky.
Ahead of her lay a hundred feet of exposed grass. Beyond that, a wall of bushes where she and her babies could disappear into safety. Between her and the lake were fences and pathways built for humans, obstacles she would somehow have to navigate with ten tiny lives following behind her.
When she finally began her journey across the grass, the hawk noticed.
It dropped from the sky like a fighter jet.
And before anyone had time to think, my friend opened her arms. She lifted them wide like a child playing airplane and ran toward the ducks, cawing and flapping her imaginary wings.
For one brief moment, she became a bird herself. I realized how much she loves nature as much as I do. But we were born with a little too much of the feels to truly see the brutality of nature with our own two eyes.
The hawk veered. It rose back into the sky. We exhailed. And the hawk found a perch to watch.
The momma duck stood close by my friend, as if asking for help. As if recognizing this may indeed be a bird witch.
A family nearby joined in. Two children. Their parents. My friend. Together they formed a strange little procession, escorting the duck family across the lawn until they reached the shelter of the bushes.
The ducklings vanished into the green. Hidden among the brush lining the fence.
I later learned that only a small fraction of ducklings survive to adulthood. Nature asks mothers to be brave in ways I can hardly comprehend. To hatch ten, and end up with maybe two, is heartbreaking.
The world is so brutiful - the beauty and the brutality of nature intertwined.
The hawk must feed her babies. The duck must try to save hers. Both were simply following ancient instincts written long before any of us arrived.
So many people in that park stopped and silently rooted for ten tiny ducklings to make it to the other side.
For a few minutes, a handful of strangers banded together, led by their hearts.
The hawk sat on its perch.
The ducklings were hidden in the bushes.
We went home, leaving a story right where I would prefer to leave it.
Perhaps some of those feathered friends will make it. Perhaps they won’t. That is true of each creature in nature.
Still, there is something hopeful about seeing a parade of ducklings born in the middle of a city. Something that reminds us that life persists despite fences, traffic, and all the ways we have reshaped the landscape.
I found myself grateful to stumble upon such a sight – that it is still possible in this urban environment. And noticing how every person who walked by could not help but stop and indulge in this little bit of wonder on a Saturday morning.
Until Next Time 🌙 ✨
Kim