Second Chance

title by makkie
written by LadyKenai

We had been at the pond the day before, when we looked in the nest there were seven eggs. Mom was sitting on the nest and dad meerkoet was out on the pond gathering food and extra blades of grass for the nest. They seemed happy and content. The other ducks in the pond were enjoying thier day also. This particular pair of meerkoets had already born seven babies in early May of this year.

We took pictures and were so happy the eggs finally hatched. The next day we went to the nest in the park and all of the babies were gone, we could see parents close by with papa meerkoet chasing ducks away from the area of the nest. Why, we thought? Why chase the ducks if there were no babies?

While sitting in the park on a bench close by the nest, I saw a huge fish jump. I thought oh my goodness! Do these fish eat baby birds? New hatchlings? We talked about it and came to the conclusion that either a seagull had got to them or one of these huge fish that lurk in the pond had gotten a hold of the poor tiny ones.

Everytime we go on our bike rides we check on nests around all the waterways here in Holland. There are many! Alot of them know us by now, we make certain noises to let them know it is us and that we have a small bit of food for them.

The next day we went back to "Little Swan Park" we call it, because we have to cross a bridge that is called the very same name. There were six babies in the nest and one egg left to hatch. We cut up our older potatoes and fed mom and dad meerkoet, watched them feed the babies until all was happy and full. I kept saying out loud, "come on mama ... watch those babies close, we don't want anything to happen to them this time!" We went home happy that night.

The next day we went to check on egg number seven. We couldn't wait to get there, we even had a race up the hill to the bridge to see who can get there first to see baby number seven! To our surprise the nest was empty. We thought oh no, this can't happen again! We sat on the park bench wondering what may have happened this time. We looked across the water and saw fishermen with thier dogs and kids. We saw one parent meerkoet come up over the small dam over to our right. Then we heard him hollering like meerkoet's do. We wondered, "what is he doing?" Then makkie said, "what if they all fell down the dam and can't get back up?" Oh gosh! We rode our bikes through the trail over one small bridge, then the next. There they were! Only six babies though, what happened to number seven?

We looked around and there were fishermen with thier families, they had a couple of dogs. They one at a time had been going to a house close by getting this and that. This time they brought another small dog and a cat back with them. The mom and dad meerkoet didn't appreciate this for sure. We were wondering, "don't these people see what is happening here?" The little babies were in distress for who knows how long that day. Since they live here, can't they hear these poor little babies screaching for help? Don't they pay attention to thier surroundings?

While the fishermen were still at the pond, one of the parents were trying to get the babies up the dam. It is just too tall, the parent could walk up the stick until he/she got towards the top of the dam and had to flap her wings to get all the way up the dam, there was just no way the babies could make it up. Over to the right a little waise was the end of the dam that runs into the ground with grass on it, even if the fishermen do leave, it is still too tall for the babies to get up. Do they have to spend the night there? How will mom and dad meerkoet get them up there? Then I thought well they should be building a new nest on this side of the dam before it gets dark out. But I am not a meerkoet so I didn't think things would go my way.

We thought about trying to catch the little ones and put them up over the dam, then thought that would surely stress them out even more. If we did touch them with our human hands, the parents might not want to care for them anymore so we decided to make them a small bridge out of materials around the the vicinity. We went across one small bridge and started gathering sticks. The only way to get the babies up there would be to put long sticks going from the water to the land at an angle these little fellas could manage to get up. We walked back over the small bridge closer to the babies, sat on the grass with our sticks and waited patiently for the fishermen to leave so we could try and help these six tiny ones.

Finally! The fishermen, kids and critters were gone. I walked over the other small bridge and put some large and small sticks going from the land into the water close to the dam, also some tall grass. This small bridge for the babies was located about 4 feet from where the grass and the dam meet. Now I walked back over the little bridge back to where makkie was sitting on the grass to give them space enough to feel comfortable and hopefull get these babies back to their warm, dry, quiet nest.

We waited and waited. One of the parents kept trying to get them up over the dam. The parent would get up the dam and walk across to the land where she hollered at the babies trying to get them back up. We were cheering the babies on saying, "go to the sticks!" GO, to the sticks! This wasn't working, now the parent was trying to get them to go up the small cliff very close to the dam, it was also too tall. The parent then walked over close to the sticks and one baby went up! Then the parent went a little farther away from the dam and the baby went back into the water! Oh dear! What can we do. This happened 3 times. Finally two babies had gone up and the parent took the two all the way on the grass to the other side of the dam. Whew! so two were saved.

Once the parent and babies went around the other side of the dam, I went and moved all the sticks and tall grass over to the corner where the dam and the grass meet. There are still four babies on this side of the dam, and now they are alone. Will the parents come back for the rest of the babies? It got dark and we had to go home, the only thing we can think at this point is that we helped two babies back. We slowly got on our bikes and rode home with bittersweet thoughts. At least we saved two of them.

We went back the next day to see the two babies in thier nest. They were not there! I then spotted one parent on the other side of the pond, went to one of our man purses on the bike got the binoculars and there was two babies and a parent. I saw the one parent seemed to be building on a new nest across from the original one, we are now guessing that something or someone had scared them out of the original nest, maybe that is why they swam over the dam in the first place.

End of part 1