Recently, artist and photographer Laurie Wolf was in her backyard in Jupiter, Florida, inspecting all the different birdhouses (also known as nesting boxes) she and her family have put together. To her surprise, Laurie noticed a mother wood duck moving her egg.

“The mother duck removed the egg from one of our nesting boxes and flew toward this other box with it in her bill,” Laurie told Bored Panda. “We believe that the duck moved the egg because that nest had been raided – there were eggshells at the bottom of the pine tree where the box is.”

“A day or so after we saw that, a screech owl moved into that box.”

A month later, the ducking appeared in the box with the owl. “Seeing the owl with the duckling was honestly the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life! It’s still hard to believe.”

“I’m sure the owl hatched the duck egg because she was in the box with it for a whole month,” Laurie said.

The woman got concerned that the predatory owl might eat the duck chick, so she contacted a bird expert. It turned out, Laurie was right to be fearful. One wildlife sanctuary in her area agreed to look after the duckling if Laure caught it. However, just as she attempted to capture the bird, it jumped out of the nest box and ran away to a nearby pond.

“A bit later, the baby duck was in the hole by itself, calling for the parents,” Laurie shared the update on Facebook. “We believe they heard each other because it suddenly left the box and made a beeline for the back fence and our neighbor’s pond where the woodies have been hanging out.

“Also, we had seen a female wood duck – about three or four weeks ago, remove a duck egg from a box that had been raided by something, and fly off toward this box with it.”

“We lost it in the trees and didn’t want to disturb it. But we believe she put it in this box and the owl hatched it.”

Laurie and her family haven’t seen the duckling ever since. “The pond nearby is on our neighbor’s property and is very hidden.”

According to National Geographic, wood ducks have been recorded living with eastern screech owls in the past as well. “It’s not commonly documented, but it certainly happens,” said Christian Artuso, the Manitoba director of Bird Studies Canada, who made a similar observation back in 2005 while he was studying eastern screech owls for his Ph.D.

Wood ducks are known to practice brood parasitism. This means that parent ducks will sometimes lay an egg or two in someone else’s nest. For example, another wood duck or some other closely related species. “You could think of it as not keeping all your eggs in one basket,” Artuso continued. “If you spread your eggs out, then your chances of passing on your genes are increased slightly, especially if you lose your own eggs to a predator.”

“We know this occurs, but we really don’t know the frequency,” the scientist concluded. “So I was happy to see another example of this.”

There are many instances in nature where a mother is found taking care of her babies. However a Canadian man named Mike Digout accidentally discovered a mother goose taking care of 47 goslings and presumably, not all of them are her own!

Mike is a nature photographer. He started working from home, like everyone else, during the coronavirus pandemic. According to LadBible, he has been taking walks along the Saskatchewan riverbank near where he lives in Saskatoon, and that’s where he noticed the goose.

Apparently he is not a big fan of the Canadian geese but he was intrigued by their activity, noticing that they were looking for places to nest.

In May, Mike noticed the first batch of goslings had hatched and he started paying more attention to them. 

“They’re so cute when they’re little – like little tennis balls with legs. So I started taking pictures of the goslings while I was waiting for the beavers to come around,”Dodo quoted Mike as saying.

During that time he noticed that one goose had more goslings than usual, or natural. The first time he saw her there were 16 goslings trailing her.

“I was stunned that this mom had 16 babies, so I started going back every night looking for this mom and her goslings. And every day it seemed like she had a bigger group,” he said.

The initial group of 16 goslings became 25, then 30, and then Digout spotted the goose and her partner with almost triple the first number- 47!

One of the images shared by Mike on Facebook is captioned, ‘This is a long line of goslings. It keeps going; and going; and going…’

Mike realised that the goose was taking care for the goslings of different goose families – something known as a gang brood and which is common in urban and suburban areas that have a lot of nests.

In comparison to the human world, this will be something like babysitting. The geese apparently give a much needed break to other parents by taking care of their goslings.

Mike said, “It was incredible how calm she was with so many goslings around. She seems like such a patient mom.”

The gang brood has reportedly spilt into three large family units, but the couple is still caring for about 25 babies.

Is this adorable or what?!