My grocery store opens at 6 a.m., and I like to shop before 7. It’s very soothing to have all those big aisles full of noms to myself. Leaving the store this morning, though, I saw this in the parking lot (mind you, there’s not a pond within miles):
I wonder if they had handicap permits.
They could argue that they were lame ducks.
+1 You win.
Absolutely!
The sad situation is, that there is always some quack who will give you a diagnosis for one of these handicap placards.
And then send you a bill.
Ha Ha Ha!!
Now there’s a fine example of a canard.
Oh Jerry. I used to have to look after ducks like this when I was a kid. I think they are Mallards but we called them Khaki Campbells.
They look like toys on the parking lot 🙂 They must be disabled to be sitting there.
Yes, they are mallards.
Umm… maybe try wading-in a little deeper, honey? *Sigh* I might as well grab a few things from the beauty supply store while we’re here…
Glad I’m not the only one who wonders where the occasional duck or rabbit that I see in the morning comes from. I’m in the middle of a suburb, concrete as far as the eye can see, and the nearest pond I know of is in a park about five miles distant.
Looks like they were up at the quack of dawn too.
We you shopping for quackers?
“I wonder if they had handicap permits.”
Oh Jerry! That old canard?
Even though they see the sign, they canardly read it.
They will probably sit there Teal someone calls Fowl.
This conversation is getting pretty Daffy.
Sitting ducks.
I keep Peking back to see if anyone has replied to my comments
Your Graham quackers?
Your name calling rolls off me like water off a duck’s back. 😉
I surrender. You one-upped me.
“Cracked corn, please. Just put it on my bill.”
Maybe they were duck-taped to the ground.
What we have here are directionally handicapped mallards. If they new where they were going they would be relaxing on the beach in Mexico.
Took a wrong turn at Albuquerque?
This site brings with it lots of witty commenters — “lame ducks” for the win!
(On a more serious note, I used to volunteer at a wildlife rehab center that specialized in water birds, and we often had to pick up ducks and other waterbirds that were injured or disoriented when they mistook a parking lot (or road, or basketball court, or any large, dark surface) for water. This was especially common when there was water, oil, or ice on the surface, making the area look convincingly water-like from the air. A few times, we had fairly large groups of almost entirely aquatic birds — such as grebes, loons, or scaups and other ducks with rear-set, splayed legs that can barely get about on land — strand themselves in such places. Usually they just needed a few days of food and rest, followed by release in an appropriate (watery) place, but sometimes they hit the surfaces pretty hard and needed more medical attention.)
Most interesting. Between this and night-time lighting and skyscrapers and habitat destruction at both ends of migration (for birds that migrate)–amazing how well some birds are still doing!
Aquatic insects do the same thing, btw. For a few weeks every year my long asphalt driveway is full of swarming mayflies from the latest hatch. Other spp are found regularly, as well.
…and then she turned to asked him, “Pardon me, Sir. Francis Drake?”
If they are, in fact, handicapped, I wonder what their mallardy could be.
Glad I read the post twice. The first time I saw “It’s very soothing to have all those big aisles full of noms to myself,” I read it as “It’s very soothing to have all those big aisles full of moms to myself.”
Never knew moms shopped that early.
giggle
Cooooool.
Dr. C, not one pair but TWO pairs of Mallards landed in my garden to scoop up birdseed!
Have you never seen an eider down?
Yes, but it’s less exciting than Black Hawk Down.
10 or so yrs ago when they were putting up the Wal Mart out by me on the former site of a drive-in in the east suburbs of Pittsburgh, which MapQuest will show is at least 200mi from the ocean, there was a huge congregation of seagulls in the eventual parking lot. I don’t believe I’ve seen a seagull here since.
This makes me miss Davis. Random ducks!
These comments quack me up!
Seriously, Jerry? Pond? On the other side of that grocery store (which I know well as it’s right next to my yarn store) is the CHICAGO RIVER.
https://maps.google.com/?ll=41.930654,-87.681225&spn=0.004013,0.005681&t=h&z=18