Driving down the same road over the last few days, I have been witness to the heart wrenching sight of a male duck standing protectively over his female mate, squished grotesquely on the side of the road, and watched as cars passed oblivious to his plight.
Well, suffer no more little duckie! The Widow(er)s Clubs for ducks will scoop you up and take you to it's exclusive haven, where, after seeing your mate respectfully buried, you will be comforted an rehabilitated.
Take all the time you need to regain your emotional stability. Become accustomed to being single again, or choose from the plethora of other resident ducks who have found themselves in the same predicament, with view to friendship/matehood, before winging your way back into the world.-- Helium, Oct 14 2002 A salutary tale from one of the bezillion animal sanctuaries out there http://www.farmsanc...org/adopt/hilda.htmYeah, they also do ducks. [DrCurry, Oct 16 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004] Flocking Road Cones http://www.halfbake...king_20Road_20Conesthey need something to do with their spare time [krelnik, Oct 16 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004] Dodgy duck doings http://education.gu...865,1432991,00.htmlI'd already typed "duck necrophilia homosexual" into Google before I suddenly thought what a bad idea that might be... [moomintroll, Oct 20 2006] Duck accents http://www.guardian...604,1231170,00.htmlQuack quaaaack quackquack [imaginality, Mar 16 2007] Paradise ducks http://www.badassbe...arries/parries.html [imaginality, Mar 16 2007] do ducks mate for life? thought that was swans.
squished - what a remarkably sad word.-- po, Oct 14 2002 Quack-sant.-- calum, Oct 14 2002 Calum, if I had a swannee-whistle, it'd be purtling away after reading your anno. That's baaaad, man!
Croissant for the lovely idea, though, Helium.-- salachair, Oct 15 2002 [po] Some breeds of ducks do mate for life. The ones around here seem to at least have an extreme sense of loyalty.
My neighbour has recently put in a large pond with an island in the middle, and I'm enjoying seeing all the little families of ducklings. My cat is also enjoying the ducklings immensely and I hardly have to feed him anymore!-- Helium, Oct 15 2002 Can we breed ducks with Canadian nasty Geese? Dr. Curry?-- blissmiss, Oct 15 2002 bm: Nah, you're thinking of Dr. Moreau.
Helium: your cat can swim? The NY Times just had some staggering statistic about how many animals are killed by cars per year in the US (I remember it as 100 million): the car has become the biggest predator of most of America's fauna.-- DrCurry, Oct 16 2002 The ducks aren't confined to the island, they are wild ones which have gathered there, and they sometimes wander over the neighbouring properties.
Did you know that a cat can vomit up an entire duckling's head? Thank goodness it was outside - and the dog cleaned it up so I didn't have to.-- Helium, Oct 16 2002 // regain your emotional stability // And for those who can't, I have a recipe for a nicely theraputic sauce.
<aack-cringe> Sorry...-- lurch, Oct 16 2002 Helium, I hope you can pull this off. In the mean time I think a better solution to this problem is education. Clubs are remedial. Education can be preventative.
Traffic education for ducks could have spared the lives of the female duck you encountered and in my case a few little ducklings out with their mother, an event I still struggle with.
Mother goose had the nerve to walk her brood out in my lane of the highway. Another car was to my left. The majority of the dangling brood on the shoulder to my right. She left me three losing choices for which I may never get over. Swerve into the human family on my left at highway speeds. Consciously choose to swerve into the straggling innocents still on the shoulder to my right (and still risk losing control of the car ) or take out the mother and a few little ones straight ahead.
The image that sends me in a tizzy is her long neck stuck up proud aligned with the hood ornament as she waddled her little ones to their death completely oblivious to the purpose of a highway. Imagine coming up on a double sized bowling pin attached to a watermelon as your front grill bowls over it..... <screams>
Clubs are good. Lets have traffic education for ducks and geese with them. <sobs softly now>-- hollajam, Oct 16 2002 And many of us grew up with Mother Goose.-- FarmerJohn, Oct 16 2002 //Traffic education for ducks//
I think we should add some additional behaviors to the Flocking Road Cones to solve this problem. Train them to recognize ducks and bump into them in the direction of the shoulder of the road. Ducks will eventually learn to stay off the road, lest they be bumped. And it keeps the FRC's busy when there aren't any road projects going on.-- krelnik, Oct 16 2002 Ducks so don't need this. They're a bunch of sex-crazed gay necrophiliacs! (linky)-- moomintroll, Oct 20 2006 [moomintroll] why the hell would you do a search on duck necro... you know what? Nevermind, I really don't want to know.
But after reading the article I'm begining to wonder what this widow(er) duck club would truly be like. I mean would they... you know what? I don't really want to know that either.-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, Oct 21 2006 Thank you [moom]. I have learned something new today.-- methinksnot, Mar 16 2007 <random duck factoid> Ducks have accents. </random duck factoid>
Bun for the idea. Paradise ducks here in NZ mate for life (and produce cute black-and-white-striped ducklings). There's a pair of paradise ducks living in the park near my office, said park bordering a busy road. I'm always glad to see them still together when I pass by.-- imaginality, Mar 16 2007 random, halfbakery