Drive down almost any rural road that runs alongside a waterway and you are likely to see a bright yellow road sign with silhouettes of ducklings warning you “Slow. Duck Crossing.” Nothing says spring so sweetly as a line-up of little fuzzy yellow ducklings waddling or swimming behind their mother. The babies look so devoted, and are so completely lock-stepped on their parent, that they will blindly follow-the-leader right into traffic or over the edge of a waterfall.

It isn’t love that keeps those baby ducks so obediently bounded behind their mother. Flocking birds like ducks and geese are genetically programmed to “imprint” on the first creature they see after cracking out of their eggshell. Of course, that first creature would normally always be the baby duck’s mom or dad. Imprinting o…