Duck and ducklings crossing four lanes of road.

One of the things about walking around here that I have commented on before is the wonderful bird life that we have. I routinely see green parrots, egrets, herons, often see ibis, sometimes hawks and ospreys and then sometimes birds that I can’t identify. We also have a lot of ducks. While there might be some unusual ones, they all seem rather ordinary to me. Day before yesterday though as I was coming back toward the house, a duck came through a slight hole in the fence and was turned toward the road which is two lanes one way, a tree-lined median with two lanes the opposite direction and the golf course on the other side. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, but still, it seemed to me that the duck might have problems and so I thought I would just intercept it in a few steps and encourage it to go back into the little pond on our side of the road.

As I approached, I realized it had several ducklings and was for whatever reason, planning to cross the four lanes of traffic. What does one do? If I tried to get it turned around would it confuse the ducklings? That was my concern and thus I found myself being traffic guard. I know, I know. The duck and ducklings were able to make it across the first lane and cars coming were far enough away that I stood on the sidewalk, waving the two on-coming to move into the clear lane. In actuality, both cars stopped to let the parade cross and then it was two cyclists whipping up the other lanes. I went into the medium to repeat my actions. The two cyclists were talking, “What do you think she wants?”, until they were close enough to see the situation. They also slowed until the duck family was safe. I’m not sure this process would have worked had there been more traffic, and I do hope that Mother Duck found happiness on the other side of the road.