The last picture is, in fact, a duckling! The parents lost their baby and adopted an orphaned duckling and raised it.
FAMILY VACATION
Okay so like, I can’t get over this adopted baby duckling. In relation to loons, ducklings are an r-selected species. Like, there’s the understanding that some baby ducklings get eaten by turtles and so they lay big batches of eggs to make up for it.
But loons are k-selected and invest a ton of time into their babies. They only have one or two babies, both parents take care of them, and they ride around on their parents so they don’t become turtle food.
This is like, the best taken care of duckling in the world. They are gonna be such good parents, even though their kid is a weird vegan who can’t swim underwater.
