Comments on: About Those Ducks

About Those Ducks

brownpau — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 13:19:03 -0800

Um, about those ducks...

By: leotrotsky

leotrotsky — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 13:58:58 -0800

*quack*

By: iconomy

iconomy — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:06:43 -0800

Oooh! Oooh! *raises hand* The same thing happened to me last week. I was over my SIL's house and kept hearing a duck quack really loudly. After about 15 minutes I looked out the front door and saw a duck down the street, waddling back and forth, quacking her little tail off. There was something about her manner that made me think she was stressed out about something. I opened the front door to hear better, and she heard the door open, and came waddling towards me. I went outside with my SIL and my nephew, and we followed her towards a grate, where we heard some faint tweeting, or chirping, or whatever it is that baby ducklings do. Maybe it's quacking. As soon as we got over the grate, the ducklings fell silent. But not the mother - there was no way anyone could possibly ignore that sound. My nephew lifted up the grate and got the ducklings and put them one by one with the mother. She was counting them, you could tell, because the quacking stopped the instant he put the 7th duckling down next to her. They all waddled quickly away and probably fell down another grate further down the street.

By: ChasFile

ChasFile — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:08:29 -0800

Where do you people live that you have stray ducks roaming the streets?

By: thebabelfish

thebabelfish — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:10:18 -0800

Ma'am, do you realize how fast you were traveling?

By: thebabelfish

thebabelfish — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:10:53 -0800

ChasFile: Probably urban areas around parks with water.

By: efalk

efalk — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:18:22 -0800

Chasfile, I live about 20 mins outside Portland, OR. In the last week or so I have seen squirrels, rabbits, snakes, hawks and a blue heron in my backyard. This area is rather rural, though when I lived in a more urban area closer to town, I saw all of these except blue herons. One of the nice things about Oregon, even in a city of 1-2 million, you're never more than a 10 minute drive away from nature/wild areas. Is it possible all the ducks fell down drains where you live chasfile :)

By: Shane

Shane — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:30:45 -0800

Cool. More ducks, less Spidey and Jeri Ryan! That's so cute how the duck walked up to you, iconomy, practically asking for help, heh... What's a "SIL"?

By: Shane

Shane — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:33:53 -0800

Nevermind. SIL.

By: jacobsee

jacobsee — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:46:34 -0800

what the...? I just saw a guy on tv rescuing ducks from a sewer within the last few days...is this an epidemic? I think it was the local salt lake city news. what's going on?

By: maudlin

maudlin — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:58:10 -0800

Ducks are getting dumber. I blame Bush.

By: Outlawyr

Outlawyr — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:10:52 -0800

Where do you live that you can lift the grate. That's the question. And if you can lift the grate, why hasn't it been stolen? It's all so confusing.

By: milovoo

milovoo — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:13:43 -0800

It's weird how so many internet stories, both true and untrue come from various car forums. Is that where everyone who isn't on metafilter hangs out?

By: synapse

synapse — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:15:48 -0800

maudlin - your comment totally cracked me up. Thanks!

By: homunculus

homunculus — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:42:17 -0800

Don't tell Scalia.

By: plexiwatt

plexiwatt — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:55:13 -0800

it's called springtime, look into it! I also had some ducks stranded at the end of a convoluted cul-de-sac. They basically took up residence, and have been here roaming pools and back yards for about two months. First there were nine ducks...now four. Cruel fate!

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:57:15 -0800

And if you can lift the grate, why hasn't it been stolen? Who would steal a grate?

By: iconomy

iconomy — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:00:54 -0800

I live in a small town in PA, for whoever asked. The grates are really heavy, but not heavy enough for a 20 yr old 6' 3", 230 lb. guy to lift. No one has ever stolen anything around here that I know of, except a bike, once. I'm not sure why you'd want to steal a grate anyway (on preview, what mr_robato said). I guess, because it's there would be the correct answer? Shane, yes, it was cute! She kept going from one of us to the other, like a dog would do. When my nephew went down the...er...hole thingy, she stopped paying any attention to me and stood right next to him and quacked right at him the whole time, like she was giving him orders.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 16:57:47 -0800

Who would steal a grate? Who wouldn't? Actually, kids would. They might just throw it in the woods, but they sure would steal it.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 04:14:15 -0800

I might or might not have stolen a grate once.

By: biffa

biffa — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 04:28:46 -0800

I rescued a full grown duck last month, it had managed to get its head trapped between two posts and couldn't lift itself up to get out again. It does astonish me how tame some ducks are around humans, how the hell did they survive before supermarkets? I live near a nature reserve on a university campus and we've had 2 ducks living in a puddle (1-2 square feet) since the beginning of spring. The puddle is at the edge of a path where literally hundreds of people walk every day, and the ducks just sit there and quack.

By: Shane

Shane — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 06:11:19 -0800

She kept going from one of us to the other, like a dog would do. Heh! I think the females are the brave ones and the drakes are the cowards. I surprised three ducks eating in my back yard earlier this summer, and the two males moved immediately away, quacking at the female "What the hell, let's skiddoo!" The female just stood her ground and confidently, firmly squawked at me, "F*** off, I'm eating." I backed away politely and the drakes rejoined her.

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 07:46:22 -0800

I moved a turtle off the highway yesterday. Where's my webpage?

By: Fenriss

Fenriss — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 07:53:18 -0800

My husband and I tried to move a turtle that was about to attempt to cross a busy road. It was very large, and very mean. We repeatedly tried to lift the thing, but it threatened to have our fingers for lunch, so we had to leave it alone. Turtles are assholes.

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 10:23:37 -0800

Where do you people live that you have stray ducks roaming the streets? I have ducks in the pond in the back yard. We sometimes get geese during migration...we've got 2 herons and some egrets (I think)...and it's fairly heavily populated right where I am. (As far as density of people to square mile....vast tracks of farm land, but hundreds of houses bunched together like grape clusters on the farmbelt vine. We had the ducks in drain problem for a week or two and after about the 3rd time animal control had been called and people were climbing into the sewer system to rescue ducks, the HOA went through and put tiny grate mesh behind all the drain covers so that the ducklets can't fall through anymore. Yay!

By: Dillonlikescookies

Dillonlikescookies — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 18:17:22 -0800

those grates can fetch a pretty penny on the black market.