My parents have flocks of ducks on their farm in Hawaii, and every time I go home for a visit I pester them to put a clutch of eggs on to incubate.
Their ducks are mainly khaki campbells and mallards, but they keep a few muscovy ducks (muscovy are to ducks what donkeys are to horses – they can breed, but their offspring will be sterile ‘mules’) as mothers. Muscovy are much better mothers than many other duck breeds – they are devoted nest sitters, and intensely protective of their young. My parents let their muscovys (and muscovy-cambell hybrids) create nests and lay a clutch of sterile eggs, and then they swap them out for fertile khaki campbell or mallard eggs.
On my last trip home they started a clutch of eggs the week before I arrived, to hatch the week I would leave. I waited and waited, and the darn things didn’t hatch. On my last weekend Mum and I went away to Kalaupapa (if you haven’t read that story you really must), and when we got back, there were the ducklings!
Muscovy-cambell hybrid with khaki campbell ducklings
Well, sort of. Mama muscovy was so protective we could hardly see them behind her, and she kept hissing at us. I leaned over the fence and cooed at her anyway, until a sudden rainstorm forced my Dad and I to flee for cover under a garden shed.
Sitting on the porch of the shed, looking out over the rain sweeping over the garden, I noticed something odd. One of the ducklings was trying to climb the fence. It was doing a good job of it for such a wee thing too – getting a good half a metre up the fence. What was it so desperate to get at?
When the rain ceased we went to investigate, and quickly discovered why the duckling was scrabbling up the fence: the poor thing had managed to get under one layer of fence, and was now trapped between the fine inner layer and the heavy outer fencing, with its frantic mother stuck on the other side.
I carefully reached down and extracted the duckling, Dad fixed the fence, and (of course) as long as I had a duckling in hand, I got a few shots:
Duckling! (with anxious mama behind me)
Oh, hello cutie!
Mama fluttered frantically during all this, scolding and hissing at us, wanting baby back. With pictures snapped and the fence secured, I leaned over the fence to put the baby down gently and then….
DUCK ATTACK!
DUCK ATTACK! (see that blur? That’s mama duck having a go at me)
Yep. Mama duck totally took me on – launching herself off the ground and using wings, beak and claws for all she was worth.
Evidence?
Duck scratches
I ended up with a bite on my thumb and some pretty reasonable scratches on my wrist, plus lots of mud.
Bites and scratches
Silly mommy duck. I was just trying to help!
(and a reminder, do enter the giveaway if you haven’t already!)
Awww, it’s so cute!
Those scratches look pretty nasty, it makes you glad that ducks don’t have teeth, doesn’t it?
Water fowl can be pretty scary. My father saw a boy almost get drowned by a swan once, he only escaped because another boy was there to help him.
Glad to see that none of the ducklings got hurt, Mother Duck should have been more grateful.
Darn, the computer used my ridiculous old pseudonym, I guess it’s sort of appropriate since this post is about birds.
You have to give the duck ten out of ten for protecting the duckling! Poor you – being kind, bitten for your pains. But I do understand why you love to see a clutch of ducklings when you go home – they are such delightful wee things.
DUCK!! No – wait – RUN!! Moscovies don’t quack – what to the hybrids do?
It just goes to show you, no good deed goes unpunished. At least you got your ducklings this trip!
How cute! When I was in first grade, I read this book about a baby duckling and have wanted one ever since! I don’t know that I’d risk the attack of Mad Mamma over there, though…