Thursday, May 10, 2012

The Wayward Mallards Decide Freedom is Horrible

It was uneventful when, a few days ago one of our two mutinous Mallard females returned home from her adventures in the stream near our house, after Sean's foiled attempts to capture them. (You can read about that adventure HERE.) One just reappeared with the rest of the flock. (You can reread that post HERE.)

Today's, return was slightly more dramatic and carried the additional benefit of, once more, soaking Sean -head to toe- this time in torrential down pours! (Poor, poor Sean) Sean was up and about this morning before I had dragged myself out of my warm bed. I heard him upstairs, but was disinclined to join him in this morning's chores since (1) I did not have to work today, (2) my plans for spending the morning in volunteer work had been rescheduled for tomorrow, and (3) it was RAINING outside, already. Better, I thought, to lounge in my warm, dry bed like a lazy lima bean this morning. At least, until I felt guilty enough to drag myself out of bed to face the day. Or, Sean required my assistance, which I thought to be unlikely.

I had just congratulated myself on this new plan of laziness when the bedroom door swung open to a hastily dressing and very animated Sean Michael. I caught the words; "Male... Mallards...Female...Chasing... Outside...Think...Wild... as he pulled on a shirt over his head, and then a clear, "Are you coming?" as he dashed back upstairs. What else was to be done? Of course, I was coming. I didn't quite understand what was happening, but it seemed too good to miss seeing for myself!

By the time I reached the upstairs, Sean was outside the fencing for the chickens and ducks, carefully stalking the two male Mallards who were chasing a decidedly uninterested female Mallard. The female was waddling away from her admirers as quickly as she could, while emitting various tones of warning quacks at them. Since a wild female, would have flown away, if she was not feeling inclined to receiving male attention, I thought it quite likely that she was the other of our missing flock. Sean's thoughts, clearly had ran along the same lines and reached the same conclusion. The other conclusion I reached was that only one of us needed to be drenched in this operation and since Sean was already in this state...

I knocked on the large picture window to get Sean's attention and signed to him my suggestion that he pause in his pursuit and feed the chickens and ducks in the enclosure some of their grain. Seeing where I was going with this, Sean entered the fencing and scooped out some grain into the bird feeders inside the coop. Then, he ran towards the Mallards who were on the other side of the coop. The males were startled and flew off. The female waddled away from Sean in the direction of the open fence gate. In seconds, she spied the other birds eating their breakfast. She slipped inside the gate and was reunited with her flock. Sean paused to perform a quick duck census and then, raised his arms in acknowledgement of his SUCCESS! Ready with my camera, I snapped a picture of the proud capturer of capricious critters and laughed with Sean in this happy moment. Then, I sent the happy hunter of to his work and I settled into my day's cleaning the inside of our home.

So, at the moment, all our livestock is accounted for and living where we want them to be. Even with the rain forecast for today, life is looking pretty good from here.

Have a great day, everyone!
Sonja ♥

1 comment:

  1. Woohoo! So glad you got all of your critters back where they belong!

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