[SBB] Duckling deaths -- question

[LAURIE BECHTLER <[[email protected]]>]

I live in one of those typical Peninsula apartment complexes with artificial
lagoons (it's in Mountain View).  There is a fair amount of bird activity in
and around the lagoons and garden plantings, including chickadees, juncos,
California towhees, black phoebes, lots of hummingbirds, and yesterday a
pair of hooded orioles.  Anyway, as you might expect, mallards come and
go visiting the ponds, and each spring there is usually a brood or two of
ducklings.  There are lots of hazards around, including kids, dogs, and cats;
I've seen a hawk (sharpie?) dive after ducklings, and another neighbor reported
black-crowned night herons stopping by.  So the ducklings don't always make it.
 
Yesterday I watched one mother with 3 very small young, and another with
5 much larger young.  Typically the ducks are pretty active, moving from
pond to pond, grazing on the grass, roosting besides the ponds, or hiding
in the garden plantings.  I could observe most of 2 ponds from my balcony and
was watching them (and other birds) from time to time -- but not continuously.  
 
Two of the small ducklings died yesterday.  I saw one dead in a pond.  A short 
while later, I found one dead on a sidewalk.  Now, I wasn't watching continuously, 
but I did observe them a lot in the 2 hour time period before their deaths.  And 
the creatures that I suspect the most for the deaths....are the older ducklings
and/or the other mother.  They are the animals I saw closest to the small ducklings
at these times.  Is this a possibility?  
 
Thanks,
 
Laurie Bechtler
[[email protected]]
 
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