Awww, that's sad.

*stifles a small giggle* Once a little boy, always a little boy, I guess.

Oh, god.

For those that don't want to be upset, its a series of pictures of a mother duck walking across a drain grate with her ducklings and only one duckling is with her by the time they get to the other side.

Too late for me. I go to bed now, horribly saddened at the innocent pain of this. She can, no doubt, hear their frightened, confused quacks from below, and yet can't find any way to reach them....

I need to stop thinking about it.

Holy shit, this is awful. So very sad.

It needs a fourth panel with roast duck on a table.

I have read of ducky rescues in such cases. Humans have a great capacity for compassion, and for lifting grates.

The fact that photos were taken encourages me, as obviously someone witnessed this. Out of this, heartwarming Reader's Digest stories are written.

Now, bunnies, think happy thoughts of nice firemen and sewer workers.

On the plus side, the alligators had a very good day.

Aw, now. It could be a storm drain that empties to the pond a few feet away and they were all reunited shortly after the picture was taken. Worry not, my pretties.

Sorry Miko. I don't know why I felt compelled to share it, I've beeen having a rough evening.

My first thought was "Ah!". Then I remembered that little duckies can swim, instinctively, and that surely the human photographer would save them!

edit - greasy linked to metafilter post where I told this story much better! I knew I had told the story before..

The same thing happened to me last week. I was over my SIL's house and kept hearing a duck quack really loudly. After about 15 minutes I looked out the front door and saw a duck down the street, waddling back and forth, quacking her little tail off. There was something about her manner that made me think she was stressed out about something. I opened the front door to hear better, and she heard the door open, and came waddling towards me. I went outside with my SIL and my nephew, and we followed her towards a grate, where we heard some faint tweeting, or chirping, or whatever it is that baby ducklings do. Maybe it's quacking. As soon as we got over the grate, the ducklings fell silent. But not the mother - there was no way anyone could possibly ignore that sound. My nephew lifted up the grate and got the ducklings and put them one by one with the mother. She was counting them, you could tell, because the quacking stopped the instant he put the 7th duckling down next to her. They all waddled quickly away and probably fell down another grate further down the street."

edit again: I'm pretty sure they made it to the pond... ;P

I remember this picture from a few years ago. The guy who took the pictures claimed to have rescued the ducks, but most of the site is now broken.

So amazing that the mommy ducks come ask for help!

I know! I didn't think that kind of thing happened in real life. I mean, how did the duck know we could help? I thought about it afterwards and thought maybe it was fed by humans or something, so wasn't afraid, and maybe even thought we were pretty smart.

Thanks ico, that's the happy ending I needed!

Great story iconomy! And greasy, your comment was a huge relief to my girlfriend, who I made the mistake of showing this picture to.

Thanks, and I'm sure those ducklings were rescued by the photographer ;)

Weird, I could have sworn we saved those ducklings in the fall/Thanksgiving-ish but on the mf thread the date is June. But it makes sense because ducklings are born in late spring, right?

greasy and ico, thanks for the happy endings. IRFH, thanks for reminding me what an awful person I am...I haven't laughed so hard in days.

I had this picture passed to me in an email before. The header: Bad Parenting

A better header would've been: Darwinism in action!

That lone duckling probably gave all the other ducklings so much shit over the years. How long do ducks live? Are these characters already done from old age?

"Do I get all their Christmas presents now, Mom, huh? do I? huh?"

Cool! Perry Bible Fellowship is doing photo stuff now!

I'm glad there was a happy ending.

web archive:

maybe this is why you're here, maybe not. but i feel i should set the record straight either way. over a month ago (may 5th actually) i posted on a forum that i frequent, an incident i had with a few ducks. the original thread is here. the photos i took are not photoshopped in anyway (other than the border and watermark). i did go down the grate and rescue all but one of the ducklings. i couldn't get to the last one, and it wouldn't come to me (2 others i called to came to me).