Help me understand this behavior(Drake)

[KikiDeAnime]

Our ducklings got out and I didn't know until I got back home from a store meeting an hour ago. The scene I came upon made me question if I was dreaming or not.
The ducklings were hanging out and following our drake around.
I've only ever seen this behavior during the hot summer last year when his hormones were calmed but his hormones are currently raging so I'm pretty sure he shouldn't be so well behaved around ducklings.
I made sure the ducklings were put back up and put some more hardware cloth around where they escaped

Any ideas on why this is???

 

[ruthhope]

Maybe all your ducklings are female.

 

[Isadora]

How many ducklings? I wonder if he was overwhelmed by all the newcomers so didn't attack them or try to mate.
Of course, we can only speculate.

 

[KikiDeAnime]

How many ducklings? I wonder if he was overwhelmed by all the newcomers so didn't attack them or try to mate.
Of course, we can only speculate.

3.
Two of them are male WH ducklings I got from a breeder 3-4 weeks ago to use as a breeder for our female WH. The third is unknown because it's our drake's offspring I hatched in the incubator 2 weeks ago.
The other offspring is currently inside due to lethargy(Not related to today's outing)

 

[Quatie]

Each drake is different. Some drakes will protect the young as well. Others can be rather aggressive towards them.

Last summer my husband put our drake with our ducklings to give our adult females a break from him. I was at first very unhappy finding out what he did . However, our drake completely ignored the ducklings. But I have heard all the horror stories too, which I was very unpleased. My drake has never tried to mate my females before they mature. Some drakes will ignore them and others won't. Why, who knows . Just their personality.