ducks
VOTD: Bodyguard
This is a companion video to this post (scroll down some). Sadly, I haven’t seen any of them in a few years. ~Vic
Video of the Day
Scoop Saturday: Family of Ducks
It’s not unusual for a mother with kids in tow to take a stroll through the library. Many bookworms fondly remember such childhood visits [but], it is unusual when that mother is a duck and she has five ducklings all following in a row as they march through a British university library. Employees at the University of Nottingham’s George Green Library were treated to just that sight recently after open doors let in more than a cool breeze. “It had been very hot that week, so we had left our doors open for some extra air movement,” Emma Halford-Busby said, according to Good News Network. Apparently, the duck walked in with her brood and they took a tour, “…walked around our atrium for a while, mom in front and ducklings in a line behind. Mom was totally calm and unflustered.”
A worker gently herded them toward the door and they marched back out again. “As they walked towards our other entrance, one of our staff gently ushered them through the gates and back outside,” Halford-Busby said. “You often come across ducks in seemingly odd places around campus but, that was definitely the oddest place I’ve seen them,” Stuart Warren, the senior library adviser, told BBC. Halford-Busby added that the cute sighting “did bring some excitement into an otherwise peaceful evening.”
It’s not just ducks across the pond who are part of this phenomenon, either. Gary Allen High School in Ontario, Canada, has a long-standing tradition with a local duck who takes an annual tour through the school buildings to get to a creek. “At least once a year, a mother and her brood of ducklings make their way from her nesting grounds, through a high school, to a nearby creek,” CBC posted on Facebook in 2019. “Staff have helped guide the family on their journey for the last 10 years.”
Additional:
Adorable Baby Ducklings Ushered Outside After Waddling Into Library (Western Journal/Amanda Thomason/09-14-2021)
Family of Ducks Waddles Through University of Nottingham Library (BBC East Midlands/09-01-2021)
Adorable Footage Shows Family of Ducks Being Ushered Out of Library (Good News Network/09-07-2021)
Shutterbug Saturday: Feathers 3.0
I love watching and listening to the birds. They are fun and fascinating. A few evenings ago, I was sitting in one of my Adirondack chairs I have in my yard. They are underneath a very large Hackberry tree. This tree is huge and old. As I was enjoying the sunset and journaling, I heard tapping…above my head. Then, I noticed dust-like material gathering in my lap, my pages and on my phone (and, no doubt, on my head). I looked directly above me, which was not an easy task in a high-back chair. Yes. It was a small woodpecker. This little thing had the entire tree to beat its beak into but, decided to do its routine…directly above me. I struggled to get shots but, I got a few. That will be for another post in the future.
Invasion of the Buzzards
03-07-2017
Sadly, all of those trees had to come down last year.
03-03-2013
But, a Cooper’s Hawk or a Sharp-Shinned, I’m not sure.
12-12-2008
Foto Friday: Feathers 2.0
More birdie stuff. I will have more, tomorrow. Here is my first post:
Part I
Indoor bird-cage at the Salisbury Veterans’ Home
12-13-2012
02-03-2017
Shutterbug Saturday: Feathers
This is for the birds! I will have more next Friday or Saturday.
A murder of chattering crows at dusk.
Taken in Texas 12-12-2007
10-22-2011
This one took up bodyguard duty to four ducks.
04-23-2016
02-13-2017