Make Way for (Brown's) Ducklings
May 12, 2014 12:27 PM   Subscribe

A belated gift to all of you MeFi moms and moms-to-be. Not an uncommon occurrence in the Spring in North America. No less heart-warming to watch, though.
posted by Danf (24 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Of all the duckling videos I've seen recently, this one with ducklings vs. stairs is my favorite.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:39 PM on May 12, 2014 [7 favorites]


I needed that. Thanks.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:50 PM on May 12, 2014


Hah! I can see my house my geocache in that video!!!
posted by wenestvedt at 12:51 PM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Sigh. I look forward to the day when undergrads go back to wearing pants.
posted by maryr at 1:07 PM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Not the ducks, of course.
posted by maryr at 1:08 PM on May 12, 2014


Does the duck-mom keep a count of how many there are?

or is "Home alone:Lost on the way to new york"?
posted by TheLittlePrince at 1:36 PM on May 12, 2014


Ducks used to nest on the Tulane campus and nearly every Spring we'd catch a glimpse of their journey across two campuses and two busy thoroughfares to Audubon Park. The trip must have been half a mile or more and sometimes went on for two days. Excitement was high on campus. People who weren't known for smiling would all but coo and the students were enchanted. Some had never seen such a thing and wanted to pick up the stragglers so they had to be persuaded not to interfere. I always felt sad for students who desperately missed their pets because there seemed to be an uptick in campus puppy spotting every Spring, as well.
posted by Anitanola at 2:20 PM on May 12, 2014


They seemed to take a very circuitous route. I am glad it is not just featherless bipeds who can't figure out Providence streets!
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:36 PM on May 12, 2014


They seemed to take a very circuitous route. I am glad it is not just featherless bipeds who can't figure out Providence streets!

Ugh, yeah, it's like they're taking the "best man almost lost my fiance on the way to the wedding" tour of Providence only they never ended up in Cranston.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 2:53 PM on May 12, 2014 [3 favorites]


We had a mama duck nesting right outside our front door one year, and the day they hatched and left we missed it. We were SO sad not to have seen all the little ducklings walking down our sidewalk to the pond at the end of the street, it must have been adorable.
posted by gerstle at 3:06 PM on May 12, 2014


My boyfriend and I are both too far from our moms to have spent Mothers' Day with them, so we went to a local pond where we have had good luck with ducklings in the past. Sadly, it was full of horrible Canada geese who hissed at us and then really spitefully pooped on our car... No ducks at all! I sent him this video to make reparations for the stupid geese.
posted by ChuraChura at 3:15 PM on May 12, 2014 [4 favorites]


A building I used to work with had a little patch of wetlands out behind the back parking lot and we had Canada geese who nested in the area. I had no love for the big geese -- they were mean and nasty -- but the hatchlings, oh my god. So cute!

One day I was driving into the parking lot while a family of goosies was crossing from the pond over to a grassy area and one of the babies was lagging behind, so he started running down the hill from the pond. And he was running and running and running and when got to the curb at the edge of the road, he went straight over the edge, turned a somersault, ended up back on his feet and kept going, still running flat out.

If I had a video camera trained on that scene, the YouTube hits would have been off the damned charts.
posted by jacquilynne at 3:16 PM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


When do they explode?


Never mind. This is a different video.
posted by Fizz at 4:07 PM on May 12, 2014


Every Mother's Day, Boston holds a parade to honor the book, and you really haven't experienced cute until you've seen scores of little kids (and some adults) dressed up as fluffy little ducklings. Some photos.

Sadly, a couple of years ago, they changed the route from the original path followed by Mrs. Mallard to the Public Garden through the heart of Beacon Hill to the Lagoon (crossing Beacon Street under the watchful eyes of a real Boston cap dressed as Officer Mike), so now the ducklings just walk (or are carried or pushed) from the Common to the Public Garden. Still amazingly cute, but just not the same.
posted by adamg at 7:04 PM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


Every Mother's Day, Boston holds a parade to honor the book

I don't want to derail but I do want to tangent... I love when cities appreciate their literature, either officially or otherwise. I'm thinking of Make Way For Ducklings, but also how, about 75% of the way down platform 9 at King's Cross station, there was a luggage cart stuck in the wall, honoring Harry Potter. (As with so many of these, the popularity overtook the exhibition and it's now on an external wall at the station and is all labeled and sponsored. Ick.)

What other great examples are there of fun intersections of city life and the literature that is intertwined therewith? More platform 9 3/4, less "Oh, there's a statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen", please.
posted by aureliobuendia at 9:18 PM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


how have ducks survived for the past several million years without students from Brown corralling them into the water?
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 9:49 PM on May 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


That was way too much prologue exposition about finding of the hatchlings or something that I couldn't make it to any waddling. Please someone tell me, was there waddling?
posted by Metro Gnome at 12:04 AM on May 13, 2014


Adamg, your link isn't working for me....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:04 AM on May 13, 2014


Adamg, your link isn't working for me....

*shrug* Just worked for me.

posted by wenestvedt at 6:20 AM on May 13, 2014


Oh weird. On a mobile device it goes to a generic "here's where you do a search for images" page on Flickr. On my computer it's fine.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:39 AM on May 13, 2014


Empress - is that the stupid new "Wouldn't you like to download our app?" splash page on Flickr? The newest update has been a great improvement except for that...
posted by maryr at 9:05 AM on May 13, 2014


My favorite Boston ducklings tidbit is that The Friends of the Public Garden dress up the duckling statues for holidays and special occasions. This year they got Easter bonnets AND marathon numbers.
posted by maryr at 9:10 AM on May 13, 2014


is that the stupid new "Wouldn't you like to download our app" splash page on Flickr?

No, I was getting a page that said "hi, here's where you enter a search term to look for pictures on Flickr - for instance, we've entered a search for kittens!" and then it was a whole page of kitten pictures. Which was a nice bonus, but still puzzling.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:59 AM on May 13, 2014


> Please someone tell me, was there waddling

Skip ahead to four minutes in for waddling and jumping. But also annoying human voices.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:33 AM on May 14, 2014


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