Are you my mother?

Are you my Mother, by P.D. Eastman was one of my favorite books when I was growing up.

You remember, the baby bird falls out of the nest while mom is gone...and proceeds to ask everything it sees if it is its mother.

This morning My friend Henia and I had a real life Are you my mother adventure. A not-been-hatched-very-long ducking was being chased by a crow out into the parking lot. After chasing the crow away, we tried to herd the little thing out of the parking lot and back toward the water, but it was so little it couldn't jump back up on to the side walk so...I caught him, must be all those baby bunny wrangling skills, who knew the were species transferable?

 As we were walking toward the pond to put the duckling in, a lady came up and said she and her girls were there putting a momma Duck and her babies into the pond. The duck family had been in their back yard, but last night a raccoon came and was getting the ducklings.  She was wondering if the duckling I had was one of them that had fallen out of the box.

 We walked to the side of the pond that the newly released mom duck was with her brood...and put little lost duck in the water...out it popped , I caught it again and put it back in ...it tried to come out again, right toward us, then it turned and motored across the water, but not toward the mother duck...

See it, the black arrow is pointing at it...I know the arrow is hard to see too, sorry. the duckling kept going away from the mom and ducklings....

  hopped out of the water and ran along the bank. The two young girls , their mom and Henia followed , and found little lost duck had wedged itself between two rocks.

 They got the little dickens out and put it back into the water. It swam toward the mom and ducklings. She was like ," And, who are you?"  Little lost duck was like," MOTHER WHERE ARE YOU!"

 See it here, left of mom. Meanwhile a mallard pair had come quacking over to us from the other side of the pond , little lost duck made a bee line right for them.

 Ya so, I guess all mom ducks and  baby ducks do no look alike, to mom ducks and baby ducks...who knew, anyway, the little thing was not going to let more than an inch get between it and its mom.  A happy ending for all.