I resent that! I am very sensitive! We are having duck for lunch and so am offended at the thought of the poor ducklings being maltreated with oranges. Cherries are so much better.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax-
Of cabbages, and kings...

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea...

"Five minutes. That's five minutes Malone, and if it's six just keep walkin'."

you're desthpicable!

SIGN: Duck Season

GRIN

Rabbit season...

*delayed reaction* The Brazos is in Texas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You kids with your long hair and Baroque music...

Incoming season! DUCK!

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Shoot him now, shoot him now.

Today our ducklings are learning to dive.

Go, ducklings, go!

Why? Are they Italian World Cup Soccer players?

They're dunking for food of course!

'Jocularity, jocularity'.

As soon I read the heading, I had to write in. Driving smallest child home from school along the back lanes today, I saw what I took to be an odd-shaped brown coloured peacock crossing the road. Getting closer, I realised it was actually - aaahhh! - a mummy duck leading her little troupe of 12 tiny ducklings (loads more 'aaahhhs'), strutting along proud as punch with her chest thrust out, while they toddled behind in twos. I pulled up right in front of them, watching as they crossed safely and toddled along the side of the road, well pressed in to the verge until they could reach a gap to squeeze through. It was an incredibly human moment, like watching a class of kiddies going for their first swimming lesson.

Of course, then I realised that was exactly what they WERE doing. The lane they'd just come from was predominantly barns and greenhouses, whilst the field she was headed for bordered Gatton Lakes. She had evidently gone somewhere quiet and safe to lay her clutch of eggs, nurtured them till they hatched, kept them safe while they grew their first swim feathers and strengthened their (Aaaahhhh) liddle legs, and then at some magical moment rounded them all up and led them off to the place where SHE probably learned to swim, and which would be their home from now on - a distance of about a mile and a half from the bulb nursery where they'd started out.

A unique and humbling moment.
And like a prat my camcorder was at home on charge, to capture the experience.

Thing is, we EAT duck eggs, and that's what that little family started off as. I just hope they don't all end up as Pike bait.

I remember a similar 'aaaaaaaaah' moment involving two swans, five cygnets and a queue of rush-hour rat-runners trying to avoid motorway traffic by going through our village. As with you, no camcorder or camera on hand, just near-uncontrollable laughter from me as I watched the five cygnets grow tired and sit down right across both lanes of the road, with one parent on either kerb, standing guard, and all the frustrated motorists alternating between "aaaaaaah" and "get out of my way!"*

*Note: I was walking to work.

I learned a valuable lesson as a kid.
DONT f*ck with swans. They will KILL YOU.

May I suggest a book to all involved with this thread, the book is called Fup by Jim Dodge.

Synopsis

Set in the California hills and spanning over a hundred years, this story revolves around Grandaddy Jake - 99 years old and a belligerent unreformed gambler, Tiny - adopted by Jake and a gentle giant, and Fup - an uncompromising 20-pound mallard whose presence enforces order in the household.


I found it to be extremely amusing.

This is me

Am busily googling for it, wheelie.
What got me was, this was a once in a lifetime moment, never to be repeated again, and I was there right at that very moment, completely alone, to capture it in my bloody BRAIN CELLS, of all places. Not the safest storage facility by any means.

Another local village - with a pond - has had triangular warning notices put up for the drivers, with pictures of a duck in the middle. Underneath, the message: Caution. Ducks crossing.

Funny, I thought they were Pelican crossings we had ...

One of my earliest memories is walking to infants school, just under the bridge that's coming up in photo 014 in steeljam's collection of Ffiesta Ffotos and seeing a swan go through the windscreen of a car. Not a pretty sight - and I think it was the driver that came off worst! Do not mess with swans!

I was bitten by a swan in Hamburg -- still have a slight scar under my thumb. I'd run out of bread to feed it, so it just made a grab for my hand. Swans can be pretty scary.