There are many instances in nature where a mother is found taking care of her babies. However a Canadian man named Mike Digout accidentally discovered a mother goose taking care of 47 goslings and presumably, not all of them are her own!

Mike is a nature photographer. He started working from home, like everyone else, during the coronavirus pandemic. According to LadBible, he has been taking walks along the Saskatchewan riverbank near where he lives in Saskatoon, and that’s where he noticed the goose.

Apparently he is not a big fan of the Canadian geese but he was intrigued by their activity, noticing that they were looking for places to nest.

In May, Mike noticed the first batch of goslings had hatched and he started paying more attention to them. 

“They’re so cute when they’re little – like little tennis balls with legs. So I started taking pictures of the goslings while I was waiting for the beavers to come around,”Dodo quoted Mike as saying.

During that time he noticed that one goose had more goslings than usual, or natural. The first time he saw her there were 16 goslings trailing her.

“I was stunned that this mom had 16 babies, so I started going back every night looking for this mom and her goslings. And every day it seemed like she had a bigger group,” he said.

The initial group of 16 goslings became 25, then 30, and then Digout spotted the goose and her partner with almost triple the first number- 47!

One of the images shared by Mike on Facebook is captioned, ‘This is a long line of goslings. It keeps going; and going; and going…’

Mike realised that the goose was taking care for the goslings of different goose families – something known as a gang brood and which is common in urban and suburban areas that have a lot of nests.

In comparison to the human world, this will be something like babysitting. The geese apparently give a much needed break to other parents by taking care of their goslings.

Mike said, “It was incredible how calm she was with so many goslings around. She seems like such a patient mom.”

The gang brood has reportedly spilt into three large family units, but the couple is still caring for about 25 babies.