The Ducks Up the Road

A few weeks ago, Laura and I were introduced to some ducks that live up the road. You see, next to Steve’s cabin sits a small pond. For the longest time, the pond was only filled with water. Recently though, the pond has acquired an addition – ducks. And a goose, or a gander. I know it’s a guy, so we’ll call him a gander.

I never really knew how entertaining ducks were until we met those that live up the road. They waddle around, following each other. It’s almost as if they use some sort of a “uni-brain.” Where one goes, the others follow. And vice-versa. It really is very fun to watch.

From what we can gather, the gander was introduced to the pack of ducks as protection. The family that owns the ducks has lost a few in the past. And what I mean by lost is that the ducks walked down to the pond and never returned. There was no trace of them. They were gone. Sam (the boy who owns the ducks) tells us that it’s really quite strange that the was no trace of the ducks. He assumed there would be feathers or something if a predator got to them. He told us that it was almost as if they vanished. We all scratched our heads at that one as Sam was telling us the story.

Anyway, during our walk this afternoon, there was a combining of forces. Sam was working in his driveway, the ducks where there and the gander was in tow, as he usually is. Earlier in the day, Sam was telling me all about how he could pick up the gander (named Henry) and carry him around. He told me that Henry really didn’t mind – that he sort of enjoyed it. Well, as we were walking by Sam’s house, Sam ran over from what he was working on, picked up Henry and carried him over to us. Laura got pictures of the whole thing. Here are two of Sam carrying Henry over.

Unfortunately, Sam picking up the gander and bringing him over to us may have stimulated the gander too much. He got all sorts of peeved and started flapping his wings all around. He started honking and causing a commotion. Then, he ran around and nipped at my leg a few times, which gave me a flashback of a huge goose chasing me around a campground when I was a kid. Scary flashback.

This is what Henry looked like when Sam put him down and before he started nipping at me. You can tell he’s got attitude.

And in case you don’t quite understand who the boss is, check out these shots. Henry is like, “What? What?”

And then Henry decided it was time to herd his crew of male and female ducks back into line. He walked away, flapped his wings in full fury and tried to instill order upon chaos. I’m not sure the other ducks knew what to do.

They really are a peaceful group though. After things settled down a bit, the other ducks just walked around and did their thing. We took a few pictures of that. And after we went up the road and began heading back to the house, we saw all the ducks and Henry the gander down in the back of Sam’s place, eating worms and other insects in a wooded area. All’s well that ends well.