A hen who has kept her four ducklings away from the public is sometimes seen near the bay north of the city hall. I don’t know anything about this group of ducks and assume they were born around May 15th. The mom seems less prone to seek human handouts than most of the others on the pond and no bonded drake follows her.
Most of the time, drakes aren’t involved in the lives of their offspring. In fact, there is some evidence online that drakes actually leave the ponds where their young are being raised so their families have one less mouth to gobble up nearby food stuffs. Then they return in the fall after the kids have reached adulthood and food is in greater abundance.
