Five Little Ducks

I love this series of photos. It is of a bunch of ducks. No important government buildings. No impossibly tall skyscrapers. Nothing to do with man and history. Just a bunch of precious little ducks.

At the Boston public garden, we witnessed a mother duck trying to get her five little ducklings to take the plunge and jump right into their first swim. She got into the water first, then kept swimming to and from the bank, as if to say (like all mummies do), "Look kids, there's nothing to it. You'll be fine."

This little guy is pretending to be asleep.

After a fair amount of cajoling from mummy, and encouragement from the human audience, the first little duckling finally plops right in! We all applauded!

Isn't he cute?!

Mummy's proud of her brave little one...

... but keeps going back to encourage the others.

And finally, to everyone's delight, three more duckies make a run for it and launch themselves into the water. The sleeping (or pretending to be asleep) duckling opens his eyes, realises that he has been left behind and makes a dash for the edge, stepping over his own tiny webbed feet in his hurry and practically falling in head first. We all had such a laugh at his antics!

The proud mother duck was so chuffed that she actually paraded up and down before us, quaking away loudly as if announcing her babies' accomplishments!

Practically beaming with pride!

I have never seen anything so heartwarming. So inspiring. So precious. And so frickin' adorable.