This very morning, I had some stale hamburger buns in the pantry and so, announced to my children, "Let's go to the Duck Park!""YAAYYYYAAAYAYAYAYAAAYYYAYY!!!!"
We played on the toys for a while, until my heart threatened to seize if Canon jumped off the crazy spinning Pukey-Go-Round one more time ... that boy.
"Let's go feed the ducks. Now."
The park is pretty nice, as long as everyone keeps his shoes on and minds his step. We traversed around the path by the stream, feeding ducks, and occasionally being accosted by seagulls. We got to the big, open pond area and some of us got our shoes wet in the mucky-duck-poop-swamp.
Then, we saw a cute little brown mama duck with three tiny ducklings swimming in the middle of the pond. They were so cute and fluffy. If a seagull got too close, mama would quack and open her wings, fearlessly facing the threat. I kind of identified with her - shabby frazzled mother of three, trying to keep my kids fed and alive; them, oblivious to the dangers all around. I asked Canon for a little bread and I threw it over to her; maybe it would ease her plight a little.
Of course the kids wanted to feed the baby duckies, too. So all bread crumbs were aimed at the three. But ducklings are not as fast as seagulls. The seagulls swooped over and gobbled every drop of bread. Being now surrounded by greedy seagulls, the mom was constantly trying to keep them away from her babies. She squawked and pecked at the seagulls, and while her back was turned others would nip at the baby ducks.
"KNOCK IT OFF!" I yelled, "Watch out! Your babies, mama duck."
Those flying rats were relentless, though. "Stop feeding the babies," I told my children, "it just makes the seagulls bug them."
Suddenly, one of the seagulls grabbed one of the ducklings by the head and ate him.
Ate him.
Swallowed him whole, right in front of his mother, me, my children, and God (though I imagine God is used to this sort of thing). Then, the monster looked at me and honked.
I wanted to cry. Or throw a rock.
The mother duck still had her two babies and was desperately swimming towards the seagull-free side of the pond. One seagull was especially persistent. She chased him off, but before she could get back, another seagull, swooped down and devoured a second duckling.
The remaining one stayed close to his mother and they (hopefully) got to safety. My kids were shocked. To be honest, I was shocked.
"Stupid seagulls. I HATE them. We should kill them all!" Worse than using the S-word AND the H-word, Genocide; the first solution my 7 year old child comes up with to "right" a "wrong".
I still couldn't really believe what I had seen. There are signs all over the park, telling people to bring bird seed, not bread. Ducks will eat the bird seed, but not the seagulls, then the seagulls will go somewhere else for food and the baby ducks will be safer.
I guess I didn't believe the signs.
Mommy duck started out the afternoon with three adorable, healthy ducklings, and had lost 66% of her offspring in 1o minutes time.
I know, I know, circle of life, blah blah blah. It makes me so sad, though. Hollow sad.
My kids are playing inside today.
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They ate the babies? I didn't even know they did that. Crazy.
I did see a magpie eat a bunny a couple weeks ago, but eating bunnies just goes hand-in-hand with being pure evil, so I wasn't too surprised. But seagulls?
Wow! That made me cry. Seriously. I'm crying right now. I hate seagulls even more now. Grrrrr!
Holy moly. My fear of birds was just confirmed. They eat their own kind. And innocent babies, at that. Now I know why people feed seagulls alka-seltzer tablets. That made my stomach turn. Now I have a major case of the heebie-jeebies.
That is the saddest thing I have heard all day! I'll throw some rocks at the rats with wings around here, maybe it's one of them. I am in shock!
I found this, certainly I am NOT advocating the slaughter of seagulls, but it was funny/ironic how many people jumped to their defense.
Nature is a harsh mistress.
I'm in a live and let die mood about them.
Kim: Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes: They have those hoppy legs and twitchy little noses. And what's with all the carrots? What do they need such good eyesight for anyway??!
I think seagulls are animals too and its not our right to kill anything especially for doing something (although sad and not acceptable for children to see) natural.
At the beach and our parks I always follow the signs because I do know they are there for some reason. I may not get it but this is a good example of not following the rules and you stating that you didn't and will from now on is awesome.
Vultures and Scavengers like Sea Gulls keeps the road kill and other stinky nasty things out of our way, we all have our role to play in the eco system.
An additional reason to feed only birdseed: The bread settles to the bottom of the ponds and grows some wicked bacteria that ends up killing ducks. Especially young ducklings.
Bread and ponds are NEVER a good mix.
Yup. I used to work a job that gave me access to a large population of ducks. So every spring where was crop of ducklings, which I called "crow food" - for the very reason you have illustrated. Birds of prey love to pick them off. And woe to any duckling who ends up following the wrong grown-up, too. Yikes.
The ducklings are so darn cute that it is horrifying to watch them get snatched up.
I've seen ducks start off with 12 or so hatched ducklings. They are lucky to see a few of them reach full size. But imagine if all 12 usually made it to adulthood. Every year. Think about how fast we'd be overrun by ducks!
That's terrible about the poor ducklings and the feeding frenzy.
At one point seagulls were seen as a miracle from God, which I guess helps explain why they're Utah's state bird.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_gulls
I'm so sorry! We had a horrifying duck experience this spring too. Our cat grabbed a baby duck. My son rescued it and it was unharmed. Sadly it's family left and we were stuck with a baby duck. We tried to find out what to do with it and ultimately released it to a pond nearby.
It swam all hopeful up to a Mama duck as if to say "Are you my Mama?" and that duck tried to kill him. It was horrible. Fortunately, we didn't take the kids to the release of Air Squeekers. Trauma for all!
I have a two month old baby girl and this story broke my heart. I just don't think I can go on with my day. It's a jungle out there.
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