Another Duck Dynasty...

It had seemed like a good idea at the time.  After moving our young family to the country to enjoy the peace and tranquility of a new home on a private three acre retreat backing up to a large pond, I had surprised the kids with six baby ducks rescued from a nearby farm.  They were Muscovy ducks, Brazilian in origin and known as adults for their ugly faces, bulky size, sharp talons, the hissing sound they make when threatened, and their tasty meat, but as baby ducks they disguised themselves as cute little yellow feathery fellows who just wanted to come home with us.

My mind clouded with heavenly images of us sitting on the back porch sipping lemonade and enjoying the scene of herons, deer, geese, hawks and raccoons playing in our backyard now joined by friendly ducks who would thankfully eat from our hands. Thinking the nature surrounding our new home could use a little more ambiance, I paid little attention to the fact that the ducks were free, as in no charge, and even less attention to the tiny voice on my shoulder pleading “don’t do it”, and brought them to live with us.

They immediately imprinted on our dog who seemed to enjoy his new role as Mother Duck, and we laughed at the parade of ducklings following Casper wherever he went.  We named them.  We fed them.  They grew.  And they became big, scary, taloned, ugly ducks who constantly patrolled our property like a pack of redneck hoodlums, hissing and pooping and mating and laying eggs over and over again.  The scene from our back porch metamorphosed into the National Geographic channel in 3D.  Female ducks filled their clumpy nests with dozens of eggs in the manicured hedges lining our beautiful home while male ducks sunned on our poop-covered driveway and coons stole eggs and hawks dove to attack and eat the surviving hatchlings. 

With our defiant duck population swelling to 13 and growing, we tried to fight back.  Using Will’s lacrosse goal net I tried to trap some of the surly creatures but my poorly thought out plan did not offer safe means to transfer the hostile, hissing fighters from the net to the van, so I released them.  During bow season, I secretly offered hunters a free chance to hunt and kill and take their tasty meat but even the hunters backed down when seeing their truculent talons.  We even contracted with a crocodile hunter type who claimed he could catch and release them all.  He arrived in a field truck equipped with an assortment of unusual equipment and shared stories with us about coons and possums and snakes he had successfully removed from people’s homes.  We watched our paid duckslayer run around our backyard in a safari hat wearing matching khaki bush shirt and shorts and knee high socks but after an hour of trying to toss a net over them, he was only able to catch some new ducklings and left abruptly, saying he needed reinforcements. He never returned.

We were called before our Home Owners Association Board to answer to our neighbors’ charges of farming and breeding livestock, but got those dismissed when we explained all that we had already tried to eliminate them and that the ducks were wild and doing a splendid job of keeping away the hundreds of even messier geese that used to flock to the neighborhood pond.

So our ducks stayed.  Some disappeared, probably thanks to a few overzealous neighbors or their very brave dogs, but the original six remained.  And we developed a peaceful coexistence with them, in harmony, like a barbershop quartet.  Or a toe fungus.

Then one day, as Toni arrived home, neighborhood kids rushed her car, pointing and shouting about a hurt duck.  Toni spotted him in the neighbors’ front yard near a small pond, writhing on its bank, his wing and chest covered in blood.  Jeffrey had a large chest laceration. He was unable to fly.  He had probably been attacked by a dog but somehow survived.  Hissing and flopping on the muddy bank, the duck suffered while my island girl of 30 years retreated to the house and returned with a large beach towel.  Without much thought, she wrapped the towel around the 40 pound duck, and bundling him up, brought him into our house, and placed him in our shower stall.

No vets would agree to see an injured duck, so our shower became Jeffrey’s private hospital.  She fed him corn and water and kept him quiet and warm and confined in the glass enclosure.  Kids dropped by to peek at him.  Jeffrey remained passive but slowly regained his strength.  And I bathed in a different bathroom.  For two weeks.

His lacerations and injuries healed, Jeffrey began to do the things ducks do when confined.  Like poop everywhere.  And strut.  And try to escape.  Wrapping him up carefully in a towel again while we watched proudly, Toni caringly took Jeffrey back to our pond to reunite with his five brothers and sisters. As we witnessed this blissful moment, the duck gently slipping into the water and his siblings gliding from the other side of the pond toward him, something changed.

Our feelings of pride transformed to horror as Jeffrey’s brothers and sisters began to attack him.  Two of them displayed their large wingspans while another jumped on his back and another grabbed his neck in its bill and tried to push his head underwater.  Jeffrey fought free and retreated to another spot on the pond.  But the relentless siblings followed and struck again.  We yelled at them and waved our arms, but nothing could break the harsh mob’s ruthless attacks now at the center of the pond.  Poor Jeffrey could not fight back and tried again to flee.  But he was slowly being drowned.

Jumping into a nearby canoe, I paddled straight into the frenzy.  Arriving in the cacophony of splashing water and hissing ducks, I swung my paddle into the head of one surprised duck, who cleared out of my way, and then connected again with my weapon, this time to the head of the crazy sibling on Jeffrey’s back trying to drown him.  He relented and Jeffrey half swam and half flew to a distant part of the pond.  The hooligans swiftly pursued and launched another attack.  I followed in my canoe, paddle primed, and played whack-a-mole with the criminal duck band, while Jeffrey, temporarily free again and seeing Toni on the bank, shot toward her.  She was ready and waiting with a large orange bedspread.  When our frantic feathered friend got to the shore, she jumped on him bedspread first and swooped him away to safety.

Reintroduction was no longer an option, I am sure Jeffrey would agree.  Luckily, our kids’ school, Charlotte Latin, had a large pond on its property, so the next day Toni and the kids transported Jeffrey to school and placing him on the bank of the pond, introduced him to his new home.

Eight years later, Jeffrey has lived the good life in his private pond paradise.   He still recognizes Toni and her car, and like an archangel communing with a seraph in a Christian sacrament, he swoops in from his sanctuary to share a snack when he sees her.  For years Jeffrey has peered patiently through the windows of the MAC swimming pool, watching her teach her morning water aerobics class. The MACFIT program ladies even pitch in to provide him a steady supply of corn they store in their cars.  Kids have adopted him as their unofficial mascot and Mary Cerbie, Latin PE Teacher, became his official advocate. Summer campers share their lunches with him and coaches keep a bag of dog food just for him at the nearby equipment room. They tried to change his name to Elvis because the Headmaster’s son is named Jeffrey and because he shakes his tail feathers when they come by.  

And Jeffrey?  He has outlived all of his siblings. No doubt grateful to others for his advanced age and happy to demonstrate his spirit of survival and what a little kindness can do, he just keeps on swimming.