Lucky ducky's

Today was my 'extra' day - I really thought yesterday was Friday and even said to a colleague at the end of the day "Have a good weekend"!

For my '6th' day of the work week it wasn't too bad. Quite good in fact. The end of term is in sight and with that comes a marked increase in the things that need to be done. It's been busy but I felt I got through quite a few tasks.

And so off I trotted at the end of the day into the 'real' weekend.

Decided once again to stop in at the duck pond on the way home. I hadn't been there 2 minutes when I was drawn to the distinctive sounds of a duck squawking and carrying on suggesting there was a problem of some sort (my mind immediately went to yesterday's duckling abduction). I saw the duck jump up out of the pond onto the wall that edges that part of the pond. She really was making quite a scene so I headed over in that direction to check out what the problem was.

I hopped over the stream and onto the path the other side of the wall - she hopped back into the pond - then on the outer side of the wall and with about 2 feet of wall above their heads, I saw these 9 wee ducklings. Somehow they'd managed to get themselves separated from mum with absolutely no hope of scaling the wall to get back into the pond.

Therein began my duckling saving escapade :)

I moved towards them and fortunatley they ran together into a huddle. I was able to pick up 1 of them and placed it gently over the wall into the pond. It scooted off across the water as though it had a wee jet engine in its rear end! Next I scooped 3 of them and put them back into the pond. The next handful was an impressive 4 and they too scooted off across the pond back to the safety of mum. That left just 1. And boy, did he give me the run around!!!!

For a duckling that could only have been a few days old he sure had a mean side-step and body swerve on him. By the time I finally managed to wrap my hands gently around his wee body we were both panting and puffing quite heavily! Still, he seemed very happy after he too had motored back across the pond to the safely of mum's side.

Then, with the whole family gathered together, mum threw me a quick glance over her right shoulder as if to say 'thanks' then lead them away to the safety of the other side of the pond.

After all that, they just had to be my blip today!!