In our travels we stumble upon some pretty interesting and strange things from time to time. This is definitely one of those strange things. On Friday night we were about to go out to dinner when I saw 2 women walking along the lake shore in front of our campsite and saw what looked like a black duck following them. I had to blink and rub my eyes because it appeared this duck was walking right with them. We see a lot of ducks, geese, blue heron and various other things while camping but this caught my eye as something different. I called for David and Hannah to come look. We decided to walk down to the waters edge and inquire. Sure enough it was a duck! A PET DUCK! Now I can't recall for the life of me the kind of duck it is but it was pretty awesome. It is not a mallard. It wears a harness to hold a diaper made especially for pet ducks. And they take it on walks and it walks right along with them. Sometimes they use a leash too. The older lady said they live on a lake and one year there was a duck like this that landed in the lake near their home. It built a nest and laid eggs but the eggs were never fertilized and she sat on them for over 2 months. So these ladies decided to order some eggs and replace them with the unfertilized ones. The duck didn't want anything to do with them and only one of them hatched out and it identified with the older lady as its mother. So now they have had this duck for several years and it thinks it is a human. It never leaves their sight. She said when kids come over it thinks it is one of the kids and runs and plays with them. David asked if it could fly and she said no, that it had never been taught that so it doesn't know how to fly. When it has been around other ducks it is not interested in them and prefers to be with humans. She let us all pet it. It is not really black but looks that color from a distance. It is more of an irridescient green with some white. The diaper and harness are red so from a distance I thought those were red feathers! Its name is Mumbles. So I must say this is one of the more strange things I have ever seen! A pet duck in diapers that thinks it is a human. LOL. Yesterday as I was heading out to take Hannah home I saw the ladies out walking the duck again and stopped and asked if I could take a picture. I had something smudgy on the lens so these didn't come out very well but will at least give you some idea of what I am talking about.
