Mini-Mergansers misguided mission
I was in Ellensburg this weekend photographing Bluebirds. After spending the whole morning shooting, my friend Bretta and I stopped for lunch beside the Yakima River. It is a raging torrent this time of year, and we were concerned about the little kids playing by it. If you fell in, the current would just sweep you away. As we are noshing on our sandwiches, I saw a congregation of common merganser chicks in the center of the river being rapidly swept downstream. My camera was in the car, so no hope of recording their very unfortunate demise. The whole incident took about 5 seconds to see them sweep past us. But, much to my surprise, they managed to make it to the other bank just before they hit some rapids. At this point, I ran to get the camera. The chicks managed to gather on the far bank in relative safety:
In all there were ten teenage chicks. You would think that among the ten they would have some common sense and just stay put and let mama find them, but no, they decided to work their way back upstream. Remember, this is a raging torrent! They stuck close to shore and worked their way upstream:
They rested when they could in some calm waters, but this next picture also gives a good view of how rough the water is in the center of the river.
Did they just stay and rest in the calm water, no, they continued upstream. I was pretty concerned for the chicks at this point, because they must have been exhausted, and just upstream of this point was another side stream feeding into the Yakima.
This is not a good photo, but the chicks are fighting those rapids to get up the side stream. At this point I lost track of them. I don't know how they got into this predicament in the first place, but I sure hope they made it home safely, or mom came and found them. Quite the drama.
