Stuck Ducks

One day, I was driving along a four lane road near my house with my 3 daughters in the car with me. My daughters at the time were ages 8, 5 and 2. It was the summer of 2004. The road that we were traveling has several ponds on either side of it so it is not uncommon to encounter geese and ducks that you have to stop and wait to pass before you can drive on because they like to swim in the ponds on either sides of the road. It can be a nuisance when you are in a hurry so many drivers just swerve around them....or they don’t and there are often fowl casualties. On this particular day, there was a mama duck and her 8 little ducklings crossing the road. We stopped to let them cross, but the car behind us swerved around causing two of the baby ducks to turn around and go back to the side they had just come from. The mama duck kept walking forward with only 6 of her babies following. My oldest daughter and I jumped out of the car to try and rescue the duckings that were separated from their mother. I told my younger daughters to stay in the car. We were successful with one and my daughter picked up the bird and carried it to the pond on the other side of the road. The mother swam over and welcomed the baby back. We searched for the second one, but we were unsuccessful. We were relieved that we were able to save one of the babies, but sad about the other. It was definitely, a bittersweet moment, but we were glad we helped.