Our friends have a home on a lake outside of town, and discovered a nest of duck eggs some time back.  The nest was abandoned the next time they saw it, and they gathered the eggs and decided to put them in an incubator, hoping to hatch the baby mallards.

They started with six eggs, and two hatched:  a boy and a girl!  They are ensconced in our friends’ house in a playpen in the living room, and spend their free moments in a wading pool in the yard.  Last weekend they let them out onto the lake and they instantly started following an adult male mallard around in the water.  When our friend whistled, the ducklings immediately swam back to him.

Rabbit and I went over to their house after work today, and she spent a good hour feeding spinach to the ducks and learning about how ducks like to preen.  At one point, Rabbit leaned her head over the water, and sure enough, the ducklings began preening her hair, pulling on it and tapping at her hands and her sleeves.  Rabbit didn’t want to leave, and I could have watched those cute little ducklings all evening.

Next weekend, they’ll return to the lake house and our friends will gradually acclimate them to life in the wild. But something tells me they’ll have ducks on their front step on a regular basis.  They’re just like little people.