The duck supermodel led 76 ducklings to take a stunning and lovely photo.

Photographer Brent Cizek found 76 smoking ducklings behind a mother duck. 76 years old! Brent Zizek, a mother bird, 76 ducklings. Experts agree that this is the feed of platypus.

Your eyes won't deceive you. There is no Photoshop or fowl to play behind this awesome and lovely picture. In late June, nature photographer Brent Cizek took this photo in Lake Bemickey in northeastern Minnesota. When he was paddling in a small plastic boat, he saw this extraordinary team: a mother duck dragging a small group of ducklings.

At home, Cizek counted at least 50 ducklings in the photo above. But on his subsequent trip to the lake, he saw as many as 76 quails playing behind the hens.

On Twitter, Cizek called the mother duck "Mother Mergens" and agreed with the breed of the duck. Mother and her ducklings are both ordinary merganser, or merganser. But the question remains: how does a duck take care of nearly 80 ducklings?

Kenn Kaufman, the field editor of ab duck-tion audubon magazine, told Audobon.org, "Although it is not uncommon to see 20 or 30 ducklings following a single mother, a flock of 50 or more ducklings is really something. There may be some different bird quirks at work here. First of all, Mergens' mother almost certainly didn't hatch all these ducklings herself. Ornithologist Richard Plum told * * * that this is impossible. Mother ducks can usually lay only a dozen eggs at a time, and can hatch up to 20. Try to imagine a duck sitting on 80 eggs, and you will understand why it is so tricky. )

The mother duck has hatched more eggs than she actually laid, which is a quirk of the Gaga people. Kaufman said, you see, the mother duck has an interesting habit of putting her eggs in other mother ducks' nests. It is not entirely clear why the mother duck does this, but it may be a way to ensure that at least some offspring have a chance to hatch, even if something bad happens to her or her nest.

Kaufman said that this may be a way of "not putting all the eggs in one basket".

Ducklings take day care, so mom's actual children and some unplanned egg adoption may account for about 20 ducklings dragging her near Lake Bemidiki, but what about the other 56? David, wildlife manager of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in charge of Bemiji area? Ravi told The Times: "They may join a day-care system for ducklings called a nursery, where the mother bird entrusts her newborn cubs to an older child, a smarter woman-a bit like her great-grandmother," Ravi said. Old nannies are usually experienced in raising young birds. When the little guy's parents do important adult things, she doesn't mind putting some young birds under her wings, such as unhairing.

Rave said that several birds, including the common merganser, use this system. Rave told The Times that I often see children aged 35 and over 50, but children aged 70 will be big children. Finally, you know, the mystery of Megan's mother's huge cub is still a puzzle. But before we award the Mother Duck Award of the Year, we'd better wait and see how these 76 little cute animals look. Remember: not all adult ducks can adapt to love life well.

Originally published in the journal Life Science.