I must be really bored, two posts on the same night!!! I just found this picture on my camera. A few weeks ago a mother duck wandered into our yard with her five little ducklings. Emily was the first to spot them and she was so excited...actually I was too, such a novelty. They must have come from a duck pond which is four or five streets away from us. Before we knew it they had set up home in our pool area and spent happy times swimmig around in the pool...I warned everyone not to feed them and figured when it got dark, Mrs quack would take her brood back to their real home.
Woke up the next morning to find the ducks were still there...there was poo everywhere and Jodies cat was stalking them. We locked up the cat but news spreads fast and before too long every other cat in the neighbourhood was hanging out at our joint in the hopes of some finger lickin food. At one stage the mother duck ventured under the back fence taking the off spring with her. Jodie was frantic as the back neighbours have dogs. When the mother returned minus the ducklings I jokingly said to Jodie we need to say quack quack quack so all the five little ducks would come back (you all have kids, you know that little song). Jodie took me literally and stood at the back fence quacking which I thought was funny until the ducklings started appearing under the fence...Unfortunately Jodies worst fears were realised and only four of the ducklings made it back. We went to bed hoping the ducks would all be gone in the morning.WRONG!!! Still there the next day and by this time the pool looked like duck poo soup and the paths and paving areas were a mine field of hard green lumps of poo...I had no idea they could poo that much. By this time I felt we had to go into to damage control as I couldnt spend the rest of my days warding off cats and dogs. I rang the vet who told me to ring the wildlife sanctuary. They told me if we left them they would leave on their own accord and was warned not to touch the ducklings or the mother would disown them...so we left them....and they were still there the next day with double the amount of poo.I rang some more animal welfare places and got no where...even after I told them about one already being killed they just said that was nature....by this stage I wasnt really that worried about the ducks I was more concerned about the amount of faeces that was building up around the entire perimetre of the house...and that mother was mighty feisty, I couldnt even go to my own letter box without her giving me a good run for my money...a plan was devised...jodie would bring home a big box and we would catch the ducks and return them to the pond. I just wish I had some visual images of this attempt so you could get a better idea of the lunacy of this plan. We were after the mother first and then figured the little guys would be easy....five of us on the edge of the pool with pool scoops, boxes brooms and anything else that looked useful...Duane ended up in the drink and hopped out quick smart dry reaching because he has never been immersed in duck shit before.....jodie got chased by the mother and got cornered on the deck and had to be rescued by me...it was hopeless....so after much deliberation it was decided we would have to escort them back to the duck pond. Jodie and Ebony took a broom each and shooed the mother down the driveway...it worked and the ducklings followed in hot pursuit... I went only as far as the bottom of the street because I figured there was no point in all three of us looking silly, but Jodie and Eb went all the way to the duck pond. At one stage Jodie had to go into the middle of the busy road to stop traffic while the ducks crossed....It took them a couple of hours but they succeeded and they never came back (the ducks that is)
The moral of this story is ducks are only cute on the first day...after that they are lean mean pooing machines!
(Oh and in case you are wondering the broom method doesnt work on humans, I tried it on my lot and they keep coming back!)