This is sooooo worth watchingks. You MUST see this TINY WING ACTION.With English accent narration.
Good Lo’.
SUPER FIND, Tracy M.
Leaping Ducklettes
January 7, 2007 By
This is sooooo worth watchingks. You MUST see this TINY WING ACTION.With English accent narration.
Good Lo’.
SUPER FIND, Tracy M.
Evel Knievel ducklettes! Tiny wing action indeed!
omigod, that’s unbelievable!!!!! newborn bungee jumpers, weithout the bungees!!! such brave lil duckies!!!!
OMG! If those aren’t the most precious little baby duckies I’ve ever seen, I don’t know what are! TOO much!!! And the mommy has the most beyooteeful eyes–so dark and soulful!
Love the dramatic soundtrack!
But more importantly, what this video has taught is, is that ducklings bounce.
That was Reduckulous!
I love how no matter how they fell, the second bounce, they were on their lil webbed feets!
EEEP too adorable!!! MY brain might explode!
But…
HOW DO THEY GET BACK UP?!?!
tiny weengs! love the triumphant soundtrack as the little ones plummet to the ground heheheheh.
Man do they bounce!! Loved all the awkward mid-air positions they took.
BELLYFLOP!
The music just makes it awesome-er.
And I didn’t know ducks nested in trees :\
LEAPING LIZARDS…er DUCKLETTES!!!!
They did jump, and bounce and I was overcome with the cuteness of it all.
I do like how they had a nice leafy drop zone! LOL
oh gosh… SO CUTE!!!
Belly flops!!! They are SO brave, I’d have thought about it around 15mins or so hehehe xD
Ducky leaf belly flop! Now thats art!
“HOW DO THEY GET BACK UP?!?!”
An even better question is how did they get up there in the first place?
Too cute though.
Sounds like it’s from an Attenborough documentary. The ducklets won’t go up to the treehole again as it just serves as a safe nest for the mother while she hatches the eggs. They’ll probably head for the nearest water hole and stay there.
Claire asked: “An even better question is how did they get up there in the first place?
They’re laid and hatched there. I doubt they get back up; that was just were the mother nests when she’s taking care of them.
BONZAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!
Quackers away!
Such brave little duckies, One gaint leap for duck kind……
I cannot get over the bounce! Do you think the Momma put extra leaves down for padding?
AHHHHHHHHHH!!!
The best. Brava.
“An even better question is how did they get up there in the first place?”
lol ur dum
That’s from Attenborough’s “Life of Birds” documentary series. 10 hours of amazingness, some of which is (natch) quite cute.
Talk about a leap of faith! I had no idea that baby duckies were so brave!
Oh my goodness. This just takes the cake. Bouncing baby duckies! Stirring music! And a happy ending, all reunited with Mum and no harm done. Do you think she especially chooses trees that will have plenty of leaf litter underneath at hatching time?
Watch that first step — it’s a doozy…
I’ve just decided, I don’t want to be a wood duck when I grow up.
Brings a whole new meaning to “a bouncing baby boy” or “a bouncing baby girl”
(walks away, shaking head…Holy Bouncing Ducklings, Batman!)
This just goes to show that a lot of cute critters are tougher than they look
Skippy — I googled “wood duck”, and apparently they like to choose trees that overhang water, so that the babys land in the water when they first launch themselves out of the tree (at the ripe old age of one day), but I guess, if there isn’t a handy water-overhanging-tree nearby, the mama duck will make sure there’s a cushy mattress of leaves so the babies can bounce.
I submitted a very similar video a few months ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRuL-c8ro5s . I’m glad duck-flopping is finally getting the C.O. attention it deserves.
Also, if you go to the YouTube page for this video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hl5MJHDi9k ), there’s a Wikipedia link with more info on Mandarin Ducks, and photos. Looks like the males are much more colorful than the females.
Wow, they fly about as well as Monty Python sheep: “Notice they do not so much fly, as … plummet.”
Thanks for that info, Useta! I’m continually amazed by the workings of nature. There’s always a good reason for every seemingly strange little thing that happens.
NTMTOM — hee! perfect.
OMG! they bouce!
*FLOOP* right onto the ground. Lovely little beasties ^_^
Awww they bounce! I had no idea ducklettes bounce!
Duckabunga!!!
i think i can, i think i can…. thank goodness for the leafy landing!
That was the most awesome thing I have seen all week.
Holy mother of GOD! That was absolutly adorable!!!!!
Everything was SO perfect together! The slow-mo, the music, the narrator, the bouncing baby birdies! Ahhh!
Exactly what I needed!
“Cause they’s got high hopes, They’s got high hopes
They’s got high apple pie, in the sky-y-y hopes.”
Swan dive?
COWABUNGA!!!
eek
Andy Lee: “Looks like the males are much more colorful than the females.”
That’s quite common among birds. The females are usually dull colored to blend in with their surroundings when on the nest and watching over the chicks, while males are colorful to attract mates.
My dad’s an ornithologist, btw… ^_^
I love how their little bodies sprawl out while they’re falling!
Amazing how the mother knows it’s time for them to safely leave the nest.
Oh, my freaking god. How are they DOING that??? That’s one hell of a leap of faith for a teeny tiny duckling. Maybe Mom should consider a nest a little lower to the ground next time… Is that John Cleese narrating?
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I don’t … I … that’s … I can’t …
*sigh*
Could I please just catch them and snorgle them? I promise I will put them back down…eventually.
Aww they looked like cartoons when they were jumping. And I love the first Mr Ducksicle who jumped out and got up and was all, “yeah, look at what I just did.”
Is that John Cleese narrating?
No, it’s Sir David Attenborough, who’s narrated a lot of nature films.
Tiny wing-flappage! Even the mommy duck is full of teh cute.
Kerplunk-a-ducks!
Seriously, I love the fluffy belly-flops. The music makes the whole thing!
What plucky duckies!
Those little wings aren’t *nearly* grown enough for the baby duckies to even glide, let alone fly. But they launch themselves out of the tree, peeping frantically, just to be with Mom. “Next, dear, I’m going to teach you how to swim!” (And the bright blue violets out-of-focus in the foreground by Mama Duck just put the whole scene completely over the top, cute-wise.)
INCREDI-DUCKIES!!!
One of the best posts evar.
OMG SPLAT
Hahahaha! That was ridduck
Things I love about this video: the webbed feet flailing just as much as the tiny wings are flapping; the belly flop; the dramatic music and the slo mo; the English accent narrator who is speaking quietly, I guess so as not to interfere with this critical moment in the ducklings’ development; need I go on?
Oh my goodness! That is absolutely the cutest sweetest most amazing unbelievable thing ever!
Talk about a leap of faith.
Those little ducklings really trust their mummy huh?
I was worried a hawk would come and snatch one in the air! @_@ So scary.
And they doo bounce! I think it’s because of the soft leaves there they have to land on.
OMG! Baby duckies falling from the sky!!! I could watch that all day, over and over in super slo-mo! awwwwwwww
they don’t even look scared, just like okay, I’ll jump, I’m a bird, after all, I gots wings!
Aww, so adorable!
I was afraid for the little duckies, but then I saw them bounce, and all was good
.
OMG!! I was audibly going “AAAAHH!!!” as each one jumped!! (Maybe it shoulda been COWABUNGA???) I wuz so afwaid dat dey’d go splat or sumfin!!1 My cats thought something was wrong with me, quietly shrieking in terror for the little ducklets!! *catching my anxious breath* WHEW!!! That WUZ amazing, but sca-wy for the duckies…and me!
I would happily listen to David Attenborough reading the phone book… Let alone talking about cute ducklets and their actions!
their feet are as big as their wings!
(by the way it’s not the english who have an accent …..)
BONZAII!!!!
Bonsai is the tree.
Banzai is the traditional shout of encouragement.
Banzai is also the last name of a rather well-known scientist, based in New Brunswick, N.J.
Hurrah for David Attenborough – reminds me why I pay my BBC tv licence – for snippets of cuteness!
Although, being an Attenborough documentary, probably a crocodile will finish them off in the next frame.
NO-ONE does animal documentaries like Sir David Attenborough. The best in the biz!
Love the tubby tummies!
You should see Attenborough narrating about pikas! Now that is adorable, like bunny hamsters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYbgobViF2k
Not that belly flopping leafy ducklings aren’t
YAY, DAVID ATTENBOROUGH!
I actually saw some baby house wrens leaving their nest in my back yard about 15 years ago. I was sitting about 25 feet away and they came out of their birdhouse (a bird bottle from Williamsburg attached to the back wall of my house). Each one of them bounced on my back lawn, caromed off my garbage can, and landed back on the lawn. Utterly amazing and so cute! I feed birds all year round just so I can see the babies and watch the parents teaching them, “and this is the cafeteria where you come to eat (my multi-seed feeding station) and this is how you pick it up in your bill. You don’t have to beg me to feed you. The food is all around you. Just lean down and DO IT YOURSELF!!!!!”
they were probaby thinking:
“look at momma im flying!”
and
“geronimo!”
and
“bombs away!”
ridonk cute!!!
Squeeeeeeee ! it must be like leapin on a biiiiig bed of sproingelyness ^-^ so cute. that really helped me wake up. I dont do sunday mornings,.. or any mornings for htat matter
this made my morning! michael jackson dangling his baby off the balcony makes much more sense now…he was learning from the ducklings!
EEP! *runs about frantically with a duckling net*
This is indeed the mighty Sir David Attenborough, from his most recent series “Planet Earth”. That man is a treasure… *worships*
How utterly adorable! Love the BOUNCE’ing onto the lovely leaves! Really love the tiny wings flapping wildly in mid-air!
Floop! cheepcheepcheep
Floop! cheepcheepcheep
Floop! flapflap! cheepcheep!
and all the peeps go squee.
Sir David Attenborough is my own personal god. His latest series, Planet Earth had at least two jaw dropping “oh my god I didn’t think that was even possible” moments per episode, and he does a lot more than narrate them…
*joins Kate in worship*
oh sweet bippy. ahahahahahahahahaha must wipe tears away. oh so sweet. must watch again. ahahahahahaaaa
It’s funny how you say that David Attenborough has an English accent:-)
I think this is the cutest and most heartwarming thing I have seen so far on CO. I love these little peepers!
“I believe I can fly…”
We all love Attenborough! (I have acctually seen him IRL, at Brittish Museum, London!!! He was watching boring ceramic pots…)
On the question how the ducklings got up in the tree:
They are born there and when they jump out their mum leads them to the nearest water where their new life begins!
The male Mandarine duck is by the way one of the most beautiful birds there is. Take a look in a book!
This has got to be the cutest YouTube ever.
Poor little ducklings. They were so brave to jump from so far. I’m glad they’re basically unbreakable.
Thanks for the pika vid. Too cute!
Oh no! Oh no! I can’t watch! [hugh exhale][sigh of relief]
OMG DAVID ATTENBOROUGH!!! YAY!
OMG DUCK1ES!!!!! W00T!!!
RULE BBC!
I am keeled.
O.K. the funny little ducklings should be REALLY glad mama didn’t nest above an asphalt parking lot! ;-(
Love the flapping little wings, as if they can actually fly.
And, as far as the Pikas are concerned:
COULD
THEY
BE
ANY
CUTER!
AND….they horde flowers! O.M.G.
Where do I get me one?
thats the most awesome thing ever!!!
Ehn!
Reminds me of this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs
OOOO, so adorable!
“Look Ma, I’m flying”
Love the flapping and bouncing.
Glad to see so many people recognized Sir David’s voice, he’s my hero
Life in the Undergrowth is probably the best nature series on the planet.
Okay, so to sum it all up:
This is from the BBC’s “Planet Earth” series. It’s David Attenborough, allright. I think it’s from Episode 10, “Seasonal Forests”
Find out more about the series (which, by the way is spectacular-stunning-breathtaking in High Definition TV) at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Earth_(TV_series)
Bombs away!
Look out below!
It’s raining ducks! Halleluja! Better have an umbrella when you’re walking under THAT tree!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! i <3 duckies. :D
I can’t believe after all this time, we’ve located the soundtrak to the qte. But I believe we’ve found it:)
Sigh, David has such a lovely voice and covers all the best documentaries. A pinnacle figure of British TV. He makes me so proud to be English lol! Bouncy ducklets are much braver than I, however. if my mum called me to jump from a tree like that…!!
And here I’d always thought “duck down” was a whole different thing…
Yep, that’s definitely John Cleese from Monty Python doing the talking.
it’s not John Cleese, it’s Sir David Attenborough… from ___the Life of Birds___ (trust me, I saw the whole darn series at 7 am one semester… wonderful series, too bleepin’ early in the morning, but there were quizzes on it……)
Thank God for leaf litter…
Unless they’re reusing footage, it’s not from Life of Birds, it’s from Planet Earth, which has just finished in the UK; listed under “living organisms” on this page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/planetearth/realmedia/
there’s so much good stuff on there, especially if you like listening to David…
Don’t make me find a clip of John Cleese for comparison…
poor duckie number 3 fell down and rolled over just in time cuz duckie number 4 landed where 3 had been…. anyone else wondering how they get up or how the humonguous pile of leaves got there??
That is the most courageous inspiring thing I have ever seen! Such optimism flapping those tiny stubs like crazy!!!!
YAY duckies!!!
This video reminds me of visiting Hampton Court on my first trip to England in 1994. A family of ducks was trying to work their way down a tall hedge. A costumed employee of the estate and a large group of tourists stood at the base of the hedge, catching ducklings as they dropped. I wish I’d taken a photo of it.
Great video, BTW!
Well…just when I thought it couldn’t get better, not only anerably &c &c but educational! Thanx to all who enlightened. Now, where do I get me one of those fat-ducklette-spewing trees for my yard? I have lot of leaves… (And oh yeah – thank you to the sender-inner as well as to my colleagues here who expanded my knowledge).
Well…just when I thought it couldn’t get better, not only anerably &c &c but educational! Thanx to all who enlightened. Now, where do I get me one of those fat-ducklette-spewing trees for my yard? I have lot of leaves… (And oh yeah – thank you to the sender-inner as well as to my colleagues here who expanded my knowledge).
Well…just when I thought it couldn’t get better, not only anerably &c &c but educational! Thanx to all who enlightened. Now, where do I get me one of those fat-ducklette-spewing trees for my yard? I have lot of leaves… (And oh yeah – thank you to the sender-inner as well as to my colleagues here who expanded my knowledge).
Well…just when I thought it couldn’t get better, not only anerably &c &c but educational! Thanx to all who enlightened. Now, where do I get me one of those fat-ducklette-spewing trees for my yard? I have lot of leaves… (And oh yeah – thank you to the sender-inner as well as to my colleagues here who expanded my knowledge).
Well…just when I thought it couldn’t get better, not only anerably &c &c but educational! Thanx to all who enlightened. Now, where do I get me one of those fat-ducklette-spewing trees for my yard? I have lot of leaves… (And oh yeah – thank you to the sender-inner as well as to my colleagues here who expanded my knowledge).
Well…just when I thought it couldn’t get better, not only anerably &c &c but educational! Thanx to all who enlightened. Now, where do I get me one of those fat-ducklette-spewing trees for my yard? I have lot of leaves… (And oh yeah – thank you to the sender-inner as well as to my colleagues here who expanded my knowledge).
After a whole day, I’m really surprised nobody’s referenced WKRP yet, so:
“As God is my witness, I thought ducklings could fly.”
There.
Ok silly question, but does anyone know the email addy for submitting the cute stuff?
Thx for your help, cute peeps!
Nevermind, I found it.
*kicking self*
Now back to your regularly scheduled cuteness.
OH MY GOD! What a PHENOMENAL clip! And the MUSIC! Outstanding!
PIKAS MUST HAVE THEIR OWN CUTE PAGE! As I watched the video, my kitty practically climbed onto the computer table to find the little squeakers. They are way to cute to be allowed!
Also, I thought every one of the porr little duckies were going to break their necks. I was watching from between my fingers the whole time…
I want to CATCH THEM!
It might be the PMS talking, but that was really beautiful. The ducklets have inspired me to get out of bed today.
WOO HOO! I got something selected for cuteoverload!
Man, I’m a rock star.
Totally super cute! Wheeeeee….. splat!
Brave, brave duck-a-lettes! And the impeccably optimistic and calming voice of David Attenborough to narrate.
(Sorry if I’ve repeated comments. don’t have time to read them all!)
This is MY FAVORITE MOVIE OF ALL TIME!!!!!
Sooooooo great!!!!!!!
Does anyone know if Planet Earth is available yet? I couldn’t find it on Amazon.
They don’t get hurt? How’d they get so high up?
I vote for more david attenborough on CO, he has narrated many a cute animal.
Those are some brave little ducklings. Good thing they had a soft landing with the leaves, but that was quite a leap. Awesome video!
——————————
http://www.petafoo.com – We Love Animals
Oh em gee, they bounce!!!!!!
wow.
we are fragile people…
those little duckies are tough!!
attenborough!
my FAVORITE is the show he did on BOWER BIRDS. . . incredible.
he’s brilliant.
this immediately reminded me of the http://www.orisinal.com game titled “chicken wings are not for flying”
http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g2/chicken.htm
I watched that video and wanted to throw little umbrellas to those babies!
This is like — the MOST climactic scene – to the MOST hair-raisingly, finger-bitingly movie never made !!!!
and – OH MY Gawd!!! WATCH the clip from Mad William Flint(somewhere above). I do not usually cick on the links, but for some reason did —I don’t remember the last time I have laughed so hard —–The Tears…..the Tears…AAAGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!
(ok – I didn’t mine, I meant at the end of clip-so-oh my god, overwhemingly PERFECT last touch —Thanks, Mad – love ya!)
I would pay to watch a feature length movie all about these little guys. That was amazing and adorable all at the same time.
No time to read all the comments right now but did anybody say
“RUBBER DUCKS”
yet?
THEY BOUNCE!!!
“Planet Earth” – from which this clip is definitely taken, it only aired on TV a few weeks ago in the ‘Seasonal Forests’ episode – is indeed out on DVD; I got it for Christmas! However, it’s only out on Region 2 DVD, so if any Americans want to get they’ll have to (a) invest in a multi-region DVD player and (b) buy the DVD from a British website. Anyway, the entire series is utterly amazing and full of incredibly cute moments. The only downside is that David Attenborough is simply narrating, and doesn’t appear on camera himself. He rules!
Holy freekin leap of faith.
If I were being soothed by the dulcet tones of my all-time personal broadcast media hero David Attenborough, I would probably hurl myself into the beyond any given day.
kwak!
Oh yeah…
I just HADSta hook up speakers and crank em up LOUD when sharing this video with friends. I agree with all comments above…the score rocks.
Yup, definitely David Attenborough. He’s been around for so long, but he’s still fantastic.
This is really cute! But also very scary! I would die as a mum to watch my babies falling that distance! But I didn’t know that duckies could bounce, ghehe!
Sir David Attenborough is a national treasure, as are the films he has made. Just wonderful!
Okay, I realize I am approaching overkill…but I just can’t help myself when it comes to Sir D.
See?
http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2006/09/we_loves_us_som.html#comment-23192611
Thanks, Stellanova!
Oh my word, that killed me. I’ve never seen base jumping ducklings before. And they even have an earth-made trampoline at the bottom!
This is the most awesome sight to see. An old oak tree beside our pond was home to a nest and one day I saw the mom fly down and then 10 ducklings follow her, falling bravely to get to her. When all were down she went to the pond, called them and they climbed on her back and swam away. Never saw them again but she came back last year to nest there again.
The ducklettes (and their Mom) were so pretty and brave I was holding my breath until they all landed. *sigh*
The pikas were completely new kind of Qte. Too bad I don’t have a decent back yard.
Mad William Flint:That was the best vid on YouTube. Thx for sharing it!
Sir David Attenborough:Will you marry me? Please?? Pretty please???
ahh cute. If i had the talent to, I’d take that clip and photoshop in some parachutes.
Kinda fun to imagine David Attenborough saying, “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!” Or John Cleese saying, “Here we have the rare, red-faced baboon browsing on beetles for breakfast.”
“Okay… flight… i’m ready for this…
okay…GO wings GO!
…
…they’renotworking they’renotworking THEY’RE NOT WORRRRKIIIINNNNNNNG-”*thud*
That was great. I love how they all knew to bring their legs back, like a little tiny swan-dive into the leaves.
*oof!*
The dramatic music and slow-mo leafy landing really make this video perfect.
“Quick, Ike! Do your impression of David Caruso’s career!”
That music is awesome.
Whåt the… Mother duck! Lay your eggs on the ground!! What are you, some sort of penthouse duck? After every tiny jump, I expected to hear a ‘Splat’ sound effect.
OhMyGosh… One of “my” forums has a thread where you post your favorite you tube vids and a friend of mine posted the link to this one. (As well as a link to CO, since she found it here.) She titled the the link “Oh brave new world! that has such ducklings in it!”.
Waaay too Qte.
OMG, it’s raining ducklings!!! I’ll never use an umbrella again!!!
“Mother duck! Lay your eggs on the ground!!”
There are predators out there. If the nest was near ground level it wouldn’t be good protection against them.
Physics work out differently on different scales. Very small things can handle proportionally much greater falls because of their greater surface area to volume ratio. Conversely, very large creatures can’t even fall a few feet without breaking bones.
Sir David Attenborough and plummeting duckies. Too perfect.
Animal Planet has currently been airing his ‘Blue Planet: Seas of Life’; it’s quite magnificent.
Cuuuute!
How do they get back up?
eee! bouncy ittle duckities! (bounce!) i hope they get lots and lots of congratulatory snuggles from each other and momma. (yeah, i’m probably anthropomorphizing here, but given a choice between a world with more or fewer snuggles, i will always take more.)
This really made my day. These little guys are way too cute. I especially love the bounce. Thanks for posting!!
Sir David Attenborough for President of Teh Qte!
boi-oi-oi-oing!
This made me think of “Toy Story”
“That’s not flying, that’s just falling with style!”
Very, very cute style.
For L and others who ask “how do they get back up?” — simple answer: they don’t. They’re out in the world, and Mama’s an empty-nester now.
For folks who say “How did they get up there in the first place?” — I assume that was a tongue-in-cheek question, but just in case… the ducklings didn’t, not exactly. Mama duck flew up there, made a nest, laid some eggs. Later, they hatched.
Wow that last little guy really stuck the landing! 9.86!
thank heavens they have a comfy bed of leafs to fall in! those brave little guys!
Oh-My-God!!! I am a slack an a gape.
Those lil’ baby duckies have inspire me to reach new heights.
If those tiny wingers have the courage to featherlessly leap out of their nice safe nest 30′ to the ground then why should we be afraid to try anything new in our own lives.
Thank you Meg for the inspiration.
Namaste.
This makes the Ornithologist i me so proud. David Attenborough (narrator) is my hero, I want to be him some day!!
I’m not a TV watcher, but I have been watching “Life of Birds” every night recently. My husband got a bunch from Netflix and we’re totally hooked. The production quality is fantastic and Attenborough is just legendary. The whole series is amazing, not just the baby duckies part, but this is unbelievably cute. You will have a new appreciation for birds if you watch these.
I just had a chance to watch this. I snorted. Boingy boingy boingy!
Weather this afternoon:
Partly cloudy
30% chance of ducklings
!!!
That’s all I gotta say.
!!!
Absolutely delighted and terrified at the same damn time.
I could have sworn at least three of them would land head first :0
cannot be real! aaiiiggghhh! *head explodes*
cannot be real! aaiiiggghhh! *head explodes*
cannot be real! aaiiiggghhh! *head explodes*
cannot be real! aaiiiggghhh! *head explodes*
cannot be real! aaiiiggghhh! *head explodes*
cannot be real! aaiiiggghhh! *head explodes*
Wheeeeeeee! Speaking from (blessed) personal experience, they bounce even when there isn’t leaf litter! I think its all the fluff.
On a side note, you too can experience this cutenees in your very own back yard, if you live near woods or a wetland in North America. Call your local extension agent, look it up on the web. You can build/buy a “wood duck box,” put it on a tree, and prepare for Teh Qte! Wood ducks are the American cousins of the Asian Mandarin ducks, and the male wood duck is also very pretty. Since all birds have a fairly well documented incubation period, you can estimate the jump day by watching when the mom stops going in and out just in the morning to lay eggs and stays in for incubation. You will probably have to get up early, though, because she likes to call them down before it gets too light. Happy Qte hunting!
I’m sorry but I’m with the minority who find that horrfying.
Do we really need to know that babies bounce? After finding out the hard way that small kittens bounce from a third story window, that sh*t really bothers me.
TJ- I second the motion! Or how about Honorary Peep Patron…something like that? (too sleepy just now to manifest the proper honorific)
Kar — don’t worry, these ducklings are all OK. They’re very light, very padded, and fall slowly (though not *quite* as slow as the slo-mo sequence shows)… plus they landed in the leaf litter.
Theo, obviously I’m a little sensitive/traumatized but I guess I’ve also seen too many babies that fall out of the nest in a splat.
I guess I’m like those folks who run around downtown Salt Lake city in case the baby hawks don’t quite fly their first time out.
Kar — If you think about the fact that this part of the documentary is looking specifically at this sort of duck doing this sort of thing, it might put things in perspective.
That, and the fact that a cushy pile of leaves in a forest is nothing at all like a Utah sidewalk. ^_^
I’m just imagining Kar scooting around downtown SLC with a big fleecey catcher’s mitt.
I don’t know if this helps any feelings or not, but the difference between these ducklings and the falling kittens is that jumping from the tree is natural duck behavior. They’ve been doing it for millenia. Whereas kittens falling from windows is not natural kitten behavior.
I think that video was adorable and funny. I also think that it was so cute when the duckies went flying into the air. I hope that you do another clip about ducks.
oh. my. goodness.
they bounce.
i love the slow-mo.
i am stunned by the absolute cuteness of it all.
i mean… CUTE
amazed
plus, the narrator sounds like the narrator from milo and otis
I don’t think anyone has mentioned the species, its the Mallard. After landing they will begin their indian-file journey to water which is often more dangerous than their glide to earth.
As I used to say when I was wee…
“Fall down go BOOM!”
Dear Ducks,
If you nest on the ground, you won’t have to take perilous leaps out of trees.
Sincerely,
A concerned citizen
Ba ha ha ha! They look like teeny tiny ducky sky divers!
I’ve just seen a rerun, the ducklets are 24HRS old!
That isn’t any old “English accent narration”! That’s Bill Oddie!