1989
From the Director's Keyboard.
by Bob Graham.
We live in a technical world and you and I work with it all day long. Enough of technology for once, you're not going to find anything technical in this article. It's about ducks! About a year and a half ago Carol and I moved into a condo at the Makai [ocean] end of Kuliouou Valley. Our place is right against the Paiko Lagoon Bird Sanctuary, we step out of our back gate right into the sanctuary.
In February the heavy rains filled up a large puddle in front of our place, more of a lake, about fifty feet wide and a hundred feet long. Several wild ducks started swimming in this "lake." Our bird book identified them as Koloa-Maoli, Hawaiian ducks.
February 17th, Carol looked out the window and there was a mother duck with eight little ones swimming in the lake. They swam around bobbing up and down in a neat line right behind the mother. When she would leave the water they followed in single file, holding better rank than a military squad. One of our neighbors put some feed out for them. The mother duck checked it out, drove all of the doves and myna birds away, and then let her eight eat. Quite a sight, this regimented squad of baby ducks.
Then by gosh on February 27th there was another mother duck with ELEVEN babies, what a troop. Right from the start they behaved completely different. These little ones charged ahead of the mother, they rushed the food that had been put out, shoving the big doves and the myna birds out of the way and just took over. They weren't afraid of anything.
After watching how the two families behaved so differently, we named the first mother "Koakoa", she was a warrior alright, a regular drill sergeant. Boy those little ones didn't step out of line a bit. The second mother we named "Luana", easy going, relaxed, laid-back.
It was quite amazing the way the two mothers raised their babies, authoritarian verse permissive. Koakoa would fight anything that came near her kids. Luana, she let them go where they wanted and fight their own battles.
Now it is over two and a half months later, all of the babies can fly and are on their own. Koakoa and Luana have left their chicks and gone about doing what grown ducks do. The young ones still come to our place for a treat (at 5:30 AM every morning, quacking loud enough to wake me up so I'll come down and feed them). The two families still behave in the manner that their mothers reared them. Koakoa's eight march in from the lagoon in a measured file, lock step, with, I swear, one of them quacking cadence. Luana's come about five minutes later, charging pell- mell from the lagoon in a mad scramble to get to the food, bowling each other over and shoving Koakoa's aside; who in turn retire back to the lagoon in a dignified military order.
What a study in parenting!