Mike in the Wild

Two weeks ago, "The New Yorker" featured a cartoon cover showing a cardinal father dotingly tending to his chicks in a nest secured in a normally improbable spot: atop a traffic signal in a crowded urban neighborhood.  Titled "Shelter in Place," the artwork shows a woman looking at the birds longingly from her open apartment window.   It might be ironic that in our current period of pandemic it feels like our quieter streets and landscapes are making us safer from other threats.  As a runner, I can attest firsthand that there are fewer cars whipping by on the normally busy roads and that the Phoenix air is much cleaner.  But is it possible that sports-minded humans are not the only species benefiting from the lockdown?   Most notable on my runs along the Arizona Canal are the mallard ducklings that have recently hatched.  I have seen broods as large as seven individual babies and as small as four.  But what's fascinating is that after two ...