We’re not Chip and Dale, but the Mrs and I rescued the new baby ducklings today.
I was sitting outside waiting for the game to start when I decided I’d rather come in and have a snack. As I was closing the screen, I heard a quack. Of course they have pavlovian trained me and I turned around to look. Nothing. There it was again. I kept looking until I spotted a regular sized duck out by the hot tub. I laughed at it and told it that it was too hot for this. The duck quacked and suddenly I could see babies!
I ran over (literally, I jumped over the creek out back) and took pictures through the bars:
It’s possible I’m five. But I sat out there watching and taking pictures for a while until I see the momma get out and the babies…. can’t. Oh. Shit.
I watch this for a little while, before I’ve determined these baby ducklings absolutely cannot get out. I run back home, jumping back over the creek, and inform the Mrs that the babies are stuck in the hottub. “Grab a tennis racket!” she says, because she is brilliant. But we don’t have one, so I rush back (now armed with my keys to be able to get into the hottub area) and try using a chair.
I thought it was brilliant, but no. That didn’t work. They can’t make it up. So I tried the lid of the trash can, but that smells and they won’t do it. At this point, my wife realizes I’ve been out there for about an hour, way longer than the “I gotta rescue ducks, be right back!” claim I’d made, so she came out to see what’s up.
Now, there are no pictures of us getting the ducks out, because we were both in the water (in our clothes), herding the ducks towards each other, and scooping eight wee ducklings out. I had tried this alone, but momma would panic, jump in, and the babies would follow her away from me. Together, however, momma was nervous, but actually let us do this. She knew what we were doing. As each one got out, they rushed to momma, who fussed like hell over them, and it was only moments before we had them all out. Momma was so flustered, she had trouble getting out of the tub area (I think she’ll NEVER be back).
As we went home over the bridge, we saw them swim away and laughed at how we had saved the ducks.
There are more pictures on Elfshot: Duck Tales