Flying Ducks

I was bicycling to work this fine morning and it was beautiful. The sun was still coming up (or the earth was still rotating to appear as if the sun was rising) and I was a bit chilly in my thin corduroy jacket. So I decided to stay in the sunlight and bike behind Holiday Inn on my way to the cafe where my sister was waiting. I got behind the building and lo' and behold, there was a mother duck at the bottom quacking madly and two little ducklings on their backs on the concrete pathway running around the back of the building. And I heard a ‘plop’. A little duckling had jumped from the third floor and had landed on the concrete below. Racing thoughts, jumbled emotions, I jumped off my bike, ran next to the building (careful not to step on the little ones) and started catching ducklings with my jacket that were jumping from the third floor. Jump, catch, jump, jump, catch, plop. Aaaaaahhhhhh! Of the ten ducklings that hatched on top of the Holiday Inn, eight of them made it away with their mother. One of them had obviously snapped its neck in the fall and the other had broken it’s leg. As the mother and eight ducklings were making their way to the river I scooped up the broken-legged duckling and tried to include him/her in the river launch. To my dismay the mother hissed and snapped at me and actually came after me. I left the two ducklings behind and let nature run it’s course. I guess the mother knows best. But that was a crazy way to get to work. Flying ducklings, saved a few, and watched some left behind to die. Defender of defenseless ducks, I’ll keep that title going a while longer.

Michael Vanderherberg