Four years back, the Czarina and I helped a friend rescue a pair of wood ducklings in roughly the same situation: the bad news was that the mother was hit by oncoming traffic and killed. The good news was that we found an absolutely incredible bird rehabilitation shelter just south of Dallas, and the ducklings were well-cared-for until they were old enough to be released.
That's actually fairly easy. Ducklings have a tendency to follow each other, even if it's leading to something particularly nasty. White Rock Lake, in the middle of Dallas, is fed by various creeks flowing into it from the north, so it has a big spillway at the south end to minimize erosion problems when we get a good storm like the one we had on Wednesday night. I remember bicycling past the spillway after a particularly bad storm, and watched a mother wood duck frantically trying to prevent her ducklings from being swept down the spillway. When one finally succumbed and skidded down into the creek below, the others followed, and the mother was finally able to rejoin them once they'd gathered on one spot again. (Don't worry: they were fine. Real baby ducks are even more buoyant than rubber ducks, so picture yellow-fluff PingPong balls shooting down the flume to get an idea of what happened. I felt horrible about laughing, but it was incredibly funny.)
Always glad to be of service. If you think that's funny, you should have been at the bird sanctuary. The Czarina shares with her mother an unnatural fascination for birds, and she gets everything from Andean condors to ruby-throated hummingbirds attempting to seduce her away. Not only did she have a real life Leda and the swan moment, with a swan that literally tried to pull her into his pond, but there was the incident with the roadrunner at the sanctuary that was determined to catch her attention by running around the sides of his enclosure. This would have worked if he hadn't tripped when he was about three feet up the side of the back wall. (I'm not going to bring up the emu that proposed to her, because her elbows are very sharp, and the top of my skull has a permanent fontanelle due to previous indiscretions.)
Well, it wasn't the first time the roadrunner had tripped: he'd been brought in with two broken legs from where he's apparently challenged a car to a game of chicken and lost. Chuck Jones's Coyote would have eaten well with this character.
(Right about the time I first met you, back when I was still wasting time at New Pathways, I was bicycling to work one morning only to encounter a big rooster roadrunner, one of the only ones I've ever seen in the Dallas area, screaming his fool head off at the traffic passing by and lunging at the occasional pickup. They may be brave birds, but they aren't smart birds. I have a lot more respect for wild turkeys: after an encounter with a pair of them at Wakulla Springs State Park just south of Tallahassee, I have nothing but respect for wild turkeys.)
As for the book, well, that's if you could convince her to write anything other than her regular LJ posts. (She's over at czarina69 if you're interested.) You see, she knew her second husband long before they got married, and listening to that loser whine and complain about the publishing business put her off the idea of becoming a writer long ago. Besides, he finally quit wasting his time trying to write and got hooked on plants instead, and everyone agrees that he's happier these days anway.
Boerboels are South African mastiffs, giant dogs similar to the bull mastiff. Zilla is ten months old and weighs 115 lbs. She's a sweetheart, wants to protect everything. She recognized the duckling's distress calls and wanted to do something about it.
Zilla is totally sweet. She always lets me know when she thinks something is wrong and needs my attention. She's still a puppy yet, but when she's mature she will be a formidable guard dog. But she will still want to protect little baby things...with her life. :)
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Cutest.
Ever.
thanks, needed that!
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Actually the vision of the yellow fluff ping balls is precious! Thank you for that.
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(Right about the time I first met you, back when I was still wasting time at New Pathways, I was bicycling to work one morning only to encounter a big rooster roadrunner, one of the only ones I've ever seen in the Dallas area, screaming his fool head off at the traffic passing by and lunging at the occasional pickup. They may be brave birds, but they aren't smart birds. I have a lot more respect for wild turkeys: after an encounter with a pair of them at Wakulla Springs State Park just south of Tallahassee, I have nothing but respect for wild turkeys.)
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My Boerboel was listening to the ducks on the speakers, cocking her head and crying. She wanted to help the ducks herself.
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