A True Duck Story from San Antonio, Texas

April 14th, 2009 @ 10:51
Posted by: By Email

This is a true story that we can all identify with. Seems there are some very nice people in SAN ANTONIO…

Something really cute happened in downtown San Antonio this week. Michael R. is an accounting clerk at Frost Bank and works there in a second story office. Several weeks ago, he watched a mother duck choose the concrete awning outside his window as the unlikely place to build a nest above the sidewalk. The mallard laid ten eggs in a nest in the corner of the planter that is perched over 10 feet in the air. She dutifully kept the eggs warm for weeks, and Monday afternoon all of her ten ducklings hatched.

Michael worried all night how the momma duck was going to get those babies safely off their perch in a busy, downtown, urban environment to take to water, which typically happens in the first 48 hours of a duck hatching. Tuesday morning, Michael watched the mother duck encourage her babies to the edge of the perch with the intent to show them how to jump off. Office work came to a standstill as everyone gathered to watch.

The mother flew down below and started quacking to her babies above. In disbelief Michael watched as the first fuzzy newborn trustingly toddled to the edge and astonishingly leapt into thin air, crashing onto the cement below. Michael couldn’t stand to watch this risky effort nine more times! He dashed out of his office and ran down the stairs to the sidewalk where the first obedient duckling, near its mother, was resting in a stupor after the near-fatal fall. Michael stood out of sight under the awning-planter, ready to help.

As the second one took the plunge, Michael jumped forward and caught it with his bare hands before it hit the concrete. Safe and sound, he set it down it by its momma and the other stunned sibling, still recovering from that painful leap. (The momma must have sensed that Michael was trying to help her babies.)

One by one the babies continued to jump. Each time Michael hid under the awning just to reach out in the nick of time as the duckling made its free fall. At the scene the busy downtown sidewalk traffic came to a standstill. Time after time, Michael was able to catch the remaining eight and set them by their approving mother.

At this point Michael realized the duck family had only made part of its dangerous journey. They had two full blocks to walk across traffic, crosswalks, curbs and past pedestrians to get to the closest open water, the San Antonio River, site of the famed “River Walk.” The onlooking office secretaries and several San Antonio police officers joined in. An empty copy-paper box was brought to collect the babies. They carefully corralled them, with the mother’s approval, and loaded them in the container. Michael held the box low enough for the mom to see her brood. He then slowly navigated through the downtown streets toward the San Antonio River. The mother waddled behind and kept her babies in sight, all the way.

As they reached the river, the mother took over and passed him, jumping in the river and quacking loudly. At the water’s edge, Michael tipped the box and helped shepherd the babies toward the water and to the waiting mother after their adventurous ride.

All ten darling ducklings safely made it into the water and paddled up snugly to momma. Michael said the mom swam in circles, looking back toward the beaming bank bookkeeper, and proudly quacking.

At last, all present and accounted for: “We’re all together again. We’re here! We’re here!”

And here’s a family portrait before they head outward to further adventures…

Like all of us in the big times of our life, they never could have made it alone without lots of helping hands. I think it gives the name of San Antonio’s famous “River Walk” a whole new meaning!

Sister Mary-Joanna Huegle

Live honestly, Love generously, Care deeply, Speak kindly & Leave the rest to God.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

11 Responses to “A True Duck Story from San Antonio, Texas”

1. Jimmie
   April 14th, 2009 12:32
   1

   I LOVE THIS!!!!!
   Thanks sooo much!

2. Kevin Smith
   April 14th, 2009 23:13
   2

   That has to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard and seen..amazing! Thanks for sharing that! Glad to know that there are still people out there that will go out of their way to do something like that..there’s definitely a song in there somewhere.

3. Jennifer S
   April 24th, 2009 10:32
   3

   Actually, this happened in Spokane, and over a year ago. It’s still cute, though.

   http://blogs.mysanantonio.com/weblogs/downtown/2008/09/hoax-alert-these-ducks-arent-f.html

4. John
   April 24th, 2009 23:55
   4

   Well, as long as it happened somewhere…

5. cooking71
   April 30th, 2009 20:22
   5

   Just thought you would want to know, this happened in Spokane Washington.

6. Noreen
   May 19th, 2009 18:18
   6

   How wonderful! I love animals!

7. Nancy
   May 21st, 2009 09:25
   7

   I saw this Monday night on the news, but it was a video. This is unbelievable. Jennifer, wrong set of ducks dear.
   This was on video on 11 pm news 5/18/09. The ducklings fell so fast, he barely had time to put one down when antoher was coming at him.

8. Sharon
   May 31st, 2009 14:30
   8

   I’m sure it happens in many places, as ducks like the warmth of the concrete to nest in. What a lovely story!

9. Karin
   July 20th, 2009 10:55
   9

   This is a touching story! Someone sent it to me on e-mail today and I linked to it on my blog. Thanks for sharing it.

10. annulla
    December 7th, 2009 17:57
    10

    It is a charming story with lovely photos. Too bad you’ve posted it with so many factual errors.

    If you have any interest in the correct information:

    1) The “hero” in the story isn’t named Michael R., his name is Joel Armstrong.
    2) He is not an accounting clerk, he is a loan officer.
    3) He doesn’t work at Frost Bank, he works at Sterling Bank.
    4) The incident with the ducks didn’t occur in San Antonio, Texas, it happened in Spokane, Washington.
    5) The story (without the inaccuracies) wasn’t written by Sister Mary-Joanna Huegle; it was written by Joel Armstrong’s sister, Candace Mumm.
    6) It didn’t happen in May, 2009; it occurred in April, 2008.
    7) No police officers were involved.

11. John
    December 7th, 2009 18:48
    11

    Thanks for your clarifications. I had heard most of those facts… after the fact. I take it that you know first hand this duck story actually happened? I’m happy to know that any of the story is true. And here’s why…..

    Nobody here is Sister Mary Elephant. It got posted on our site from a very convincing viral email. We didn’t change a word of it, that’s word for word the way it came in. It’s been highly talked about on our blog by people over the world…. we’ve had more than 10,000 hits on this one post. I wish we had put some kind of a damn Google ad on it – maybe selling Purina Duck Chow. I think that the photos are real. There was a subsequent post on our website explaining the oddness of it all. There was even a thing about it on the local San Antonio news.

    A lot of the readers of Whippleworld are from San Antonio so we became interested in it from an “urban legend” angle. Meaning the changing of the venue by whoever did it. And why? Are San Antonians so lame we have to highjack human interest stories from Spokane? Or did somebody from some other city frame us because the Riverwalk sounded more quaint than Spokane?

    So, the bottom line is we didn’t write it or start it, we just posted what a member of our community blog sent in. And the story of it has become a story. Look down to “variations” on this urban legends myth busing site: http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/amazingduck.asp