It is very interesting what situations life brings you. I pulled up to an intersection today on my way to brunch with friends. On the other side of the intersection in front of me where a man and a woman standing in the middle of the road. He had the folding windshield sunshade from his car and was bending over holding it to the ground and she was bending over trying to shoo something along. The "something" was a gaggle (I know that applies to geese, but does it work with ducks?) of ducklings. The couple was trying to convince them to go to the side of the road and out of traffic. They had other ideas and weren't cooperating, in fact one escaped their attention and made a dash for the lined up cars on the other side of the road.

The light changed and I shook my head as the other two lanes of traffic started forward toward the two humans and eleven miniature water fowl in the middle of the road. How can you not see a spectacle like this? The front cars finally stopped just shy of the struggling beings both feathered and not. The other cars behind them stopped and started honking. The ducklings, seeing their chance made a break past the man futilely trying to corral them and ran under one of the front cars to make their stand.

Seeing this situation quickly turning for the worse, I pulled my motorcycle to the side of the road and started to direct the strident people who had someplace very important to be on a Sunday morning past the stalemate that had now developed. At one point a guy in his SUV almost hit me as he squeezed between two other cars so that he could get to church on time, either that or a bar, who knows.

Finally, with traffic decreased thanks to a biker acting like a traffic cop (the county jail was within a hundred feet, by the way) three women were able to drag the little feathered babies out from under the car. What happened to the guy with the sunshield, I don't know. The women put them into a box and went over to the side of the road and the flummoxed driver under whose car they had taken refuge was able to go on his way.

The kind ladies who had gathered the ducklings suggested that we release them at a park not far away, but I was concerned that the whole drama would just be played out again said that I would take them to the local Aviary and ask their advice. They thanked me and went their way after poking some holes in the box.

The aviary couldn't take the ducks in as the bird population of the place was quarantined against possible illness from wild fowl but they gave me some numbers to call (tomorrow) and a cup full of feed the the little birds may eat. I discovered that it is a myth, by the way, that you shouldn't touch baby birds for fear that the mothers will reject them. Apparently, birds have extremely poor senses of smell and won't be able to tell that humans have touched their offspring.


Anyway, after driving all over town with a box of cheeping ducklings on the back of my motorcycle I am now home with a terrarium full of cheeping, eating, drinking, and apparently happy ducklings waiting to see what will happen tomorrow. I will post some pictures of the cute little tykes later.