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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruff" data-source="post: 3407053" data-attributes="member: 114987"><p>Mortality in fledgling birds is puzzling. One time early in the morning I was walking along the bank of a slow moving river that runs through a city and came upon a mallard family, 5 ducklings and the mother. Literally as I watched, the active little ducklings just turned over one by one, dead, and started to float away in the water, to the distress of the mother. The whole thing took no more than 10 seconds or so.  I suppose it was a natural toxin from something they ate, but if I hadn't been quite alone I would have been convinced that someone had deliberately poisoned them, so quickly and dramatically did they die.</p></blockquote><p></p>