The Caspers and the Friendly Ducks

In June we went to visit Audley End House. It is a beautiful house with stunning grounds (pictures to follow this post). The day we went, the house happened to be closed and we were very disappointed. Before we left I noticed there were lots of ducks around the pond, so I went over to the fence to get a better look. I didn't stand at the fence longer than 30 seconds before some of the ducks started to migrate towards me. I was stunned, to say the least. I had never seen this behavior before in birds. It became clear that they were expecting me to feed them! I went to our van and got the only food we had with us, graham crackers, and returned to find even more ducks on their way. The funniest sight was to see some of them "running".

Send in the ducks!

After a while, a mother and her 11 ducklings waddled on over to get in on the action! The ducklings had an advantage the other ducks did not...

...they could fit through the slats in the fence. This is Kayla feeding the ducklings from her hand, and Rhett feeding them from his shoe. lol. The sweet little guys would peck at our shoe laces and finger tips, thinking they were food no doubt. Here are Tarah, me, Brandon, and Brittany feeding the ducklings. Their mother was never very far from the fence, watching closely; and if we picked one up it would cheep, at which sound the mother would come closer and quack to her baby. It was very sweet and made the whole trip worth it. We did go back to the house on a day it was opened, and that time we brought two bags of bread to feed our friends. Even the adult ducks were confident enough to eat right out of our hands. The white duck stole an entire piece of bread out of Brandon's hand then ran off to enjoy his spoil. Another duck had Tarah terrified and on the run, he wanted her piece of bread so badly!