Feeding Ducks

A couple of weeks ago we went and fed the ducks at Tri-City park. Nancy had a lot of old bread that she had been saving for just such an occasion.

Aaron had no fear, so we kept a hand on him at all times. We are certain that he would have jumped in with the ducks had we let him.

At first there were only a handful ducks, but as we started feeding them, the rest of the ducks from all over the park started showing up. We spent about an hour there and just as we were getting ready to leave, some older ducklings showed up. There were five of them and when they showed up, a woman came up behind them. She told us that one of the ducklings had a fishing hook in his foot. She had called animal control and they were on their way to catch the duck and take him to the vet. When she told us that, we decided to stay and help keep the ducklings there so that the animal control guy could find the hurt duck. We didn't have any more bread, so we had to scrounge around on the ground for bread that was dropped that the ducks hadn't found. We were on our last couple bits of bread when the guy finally showed up. We used the last of the bread to lure the hurt duck closer to the shore. When the guy had a clear shot of the duck, he swooped with the net and caught the little duck. It was good that he caught it with the first try because all of the ducks scattered and we didn't have anything to bring them back for a second try. The poor little duck's foot was so swollen that he couldn't even use it to swim--the hook went completely through his foot. The guy said that it wasn't anything serious and that after a round of antibiotics the duck would be good to go.

We were glad that we were there to help. The woman had no way of keeping the ducks near the shore--she was there walking, and I really doubt if the animal control guy could have caught it otherwise.

The next time we go, we plan on bringing a restraint so that we don't have to constantly worry about Aaron falling in, and we'll buy some really cheep bread so that each kid can have their own bag (and then we don't have to worry about little hands thinking that the old, moldy bread would make a good snack--they can eat as much as they want.)