Today I screeched my brakes bringing the traffic to a halt. All this in honour of a family of ducks. The cutest, fluffiest, most chaotic family of ducks.
I can tell I wasn’t popular with the drivers in the vehicles behind me. Screeching to a halt, hazard lights on. Probably from their point of view for no reason at all.
What they couldn’t see was about 10 ducklings. Some yellow, some brown jogging along the road. Some where on the pavement with their mum but otherwise they were all over the road. One even shot off into a puddle for a quick swim before realising that s/he was being left behind and needed to catch up.
I’m afraid this picture is the only one worth showing the others were a fuzzy haze. Like basset photoblogging capturing these creatures on camera was no mean feat. Especially when you’re camera is not a fast action SLR. Oh and you’ve got blokes hanging out of their ute windows making rude gestures.
I did finally get out of the car to get a few shots when a monster in a white van – someone in the building trade I’m sure, decided he couldn’t wait for the family to cross the road to safety. He overtook the 4 other cars that had pulled up to admire the view and shot passed. He narrowly missed our stray bathing beauty duckling but he certainly scared them all and they ran like fury down into a drive and out of shot for me.
Boy was I mad.
At the next traffic junction the guy in the ute behind me (with two pretty tough looking dogs in the back) came up beside me and wound down his window. It was at this point I was locking the door and wondering if I was going to be a victim of road rage. Fear not blog friends, this is what he said.
How cool was that! Pity that ****ard had to scare them away. It’s made my day that has!
And then he shot off down the highway spraying up gravel as he went. I couldn’t agree more.
The funny thing is that I saw the pair of ducks nesting in the pathway verge earlier this week and thought what a cool picture that would be. I think today’s performance of showing off their family was much more fun. The residents of Plateau Road are really lucky to have this duck family to admire for a while.
Now, I’m off to find our neighbourly ducks to see what’s happening there.
Some years ago, when our swimming pool was a pool and not the elegant scree garden it now is, each evening a mother duck would bring her ducklings from the stream at the back of the house and march them all 100ft up the drive. They would spend the night in the pool sleeping on a big piece of insulation board in the middle of the water. In the mornings they walked up a ramp made with another board so they could get out of the water and go back down to the stream. I would watch until they were safely away before letting my evil cats out of the house. Eventually they went to live on the lake further along the valley. Ducklings are just so cute.
PS I’ve got my own blog set up at last, it’s-
http://www.notesfromnorthdevon.blogspot.com/
That is hilarious!! Once, my dad had an encounter with a family of geese on the way home from work. He described the honking back and forth and it was so funny, my mom forgave that he was late for dinner:-)
Thanks for stopping by my blog today and leaving such nice comments. I would love to have you back any time:-)
Did you ever read the children’s story, Make Way for Ducklings? I our neck of the woods we stop for geese, also. BTW, thanks so much for visiting us in The Great State of Wisconsin! Isn’t BATW great?
Thank you so much for stopping by Missouri last week!
I’ve enjoyed reading through several of your posts – I have to say I am intrigued by the photo of what I assume must be your house! It must be heaven on earth! Although, I AM glad it’s been summer here and NOT winter!
Blessings!
~Karin@6byHisDesign
Hillarious! I love that, some of unite for the strangest things, always seems to be little ducks to do that. Being a country lass I also agree that there is nothing better than the sight of some little ducklings, I would screech my brakes for that any day! x
I am a bit late thanking you for stopping by my place on Monday BATW. It was fun and I am meeting so many great people. It will be so much fun visiting NZ now. My husband has a patient from NZ. She is an adventurer who has traveled the world on foot. To the North Pole, the first woman to do so alone, & across the Gobi dessert. She has climbed mountains and has done thing many people just dream about. She is an amazing woman and I love her stories.
But back to us. I am so happy you stopped in and hope you do so often. I will enjoy checking in with you and seeing more of your beautiful country.