Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Funny Duckling

DucklingI have a story for you about a little duckling today. What it did was pretty funny. I still laugh just thinking about this one. It's something I thought only happened in cartoons. It seems like I'm seeing a lot of cartoon stuff lately.

Anyway, I decided to go back to the place I saw the mother duck and her little ones. It's been about two weeks since I saw them and I thought I'd go and try to get some better pictures. Time seems to go by so fast though. When I saw them before they were so little, and the mother was keeping a very close watch on them.

This time when I stepped out of the forest and out near the pond, they had grown a lot since then. There was one of them swimming near the shore right in front of me. It didn't see me at first, and I had trouble seeing it because of the weeds. Well, you can see what I mean by looking at the picture.

DucklingI decided to get a closer look, since it didn't seem to mind, so I stepped a little closer. That's when it took off! This funny little duckling shot off so fast that it looked like it was actually running on top of the water! You can see that it's not really swimming at all.

I could actually see its feet running on the surface of the water. I tried to follow it with the camera, but it was much too fast for me. This picture was only a lucky shot. If you take a close look you can see the water splashing behind it and the big wake it left back there.

I'm sure it was pretty scared, but that was the most comical reaction I've ever seen by an animal. I've had so many different animals run from me, but none ever did it like this. I was trying to follow it with the camera and watch it while I was laughing. It wasn't easy at all.

DucklingsThe little duckling stopped as soon as it met up with this second one. As soon as they got together, they leisurely swam to the other side of the pond and into the weeds there. That was the last I saw of them.

I didn't get a better picture than this one because the sun was shining much too brightly into the screen of the camera. I had to point it in the direction I hoped was right, and make a few blind attempts. I guess all three pictures were lucky, even though I got several bad ones to go with these.

If you watch anything long enough, you'll get to see things like this. Nature, animals, people, even traffic. There's always something amusing if you pay attention.

9 comments:

  1. Just like my cat who slept so peacefully and even if I move my hands she will jump like I had scared her

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  2. Hi, Ratty! I love ducks,too. We get wood ducks and mallards like you have. Once in a while during migration we get something more exotic than that. What freaks me out is how the little guys disappear so regularly with predation, and in the end our ducks usually have only one or two ducklings. Natural selection at work, I guess. Keep 'em coming! Cheers, Diane Tucker, Estate Naturalist, Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT

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  3. It must be a joy to watch those ducklings, especially when it left "water-track" like the one in the second picture..

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  4. Ducklings are so funny to watch. A week ago we walked by the Chattahoochee River and saw 6 ducklings with their mom. They were trying to follow mom who had gone over a log, and kept tying and would fall back in the water. It was so interesting to watch that I forgot to take photos of them!

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  5. Yes, I have seen them "walk on water" when they are startled, too! It is so cute. Then they sometimes come back and quack/scold (at a distance) you for scaring them too.

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  6. You were as funny as the duckling, when it thought about this.

    You must be the only one who care so much about them.

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  7. That is so cute Ratty. You got a great photo of the little duck running or swimming away as fast as it's little legs could go..Ha!

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  8. It looks like a mini speed boat dashing away. How cute. I love this story.

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  9. Kruel - I used to have a cat like that. I used to scare her on purpose. I thought it was funny, but then the cat would try to bite me.
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    Diane T - The ducks around here are pretty safe from that. I think we have some foxes and coyotes, but not too many. I'd love to see some of the other kinds of ducks other than mallards. The lack of predators has left us overrun with geese though.
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    Icy BC - It was really fun because I never saw anything like it before. That duck was very fast.
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    Vagabonde - That would have been fun to watch. I wonder how they finally got over, and if mom had to go back and help.
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    The Retired One - I would love to see one scolding me. I've had squirrels do it plenty of times, but never a duck.
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    Rainfield - I don't think the duck thought I cared. It was more worried about not becoming a meal.
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    Ginnymo - That little duck was the highlight of my day. I hope to see something like that again some time.
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    Poetic Shutterbug - It kind of acted like a mini speed boat. It almost seem like it had a motor strapped to it.

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