If this is what God does to baby ducks...

There's nothing like rounding off a punishing 40-day tour schedule with a relaxing trip to the park, right? Back in Maastricht, my work completed, I wandered to the spot where my girlfriend and I took our first heavenly picnic to soak up some sunshine, some nature, some general good vibes. Germany and the lowlands had received a barrage of rain in the previous days, but today (that day, obviously; I'm mixing tenses to keep you on you toes/piss you off/I'm just fucking lazy and a sloppy writer, ok?) the sun was out, I had 5 weeks off with my girlfriend to look forward to, and I didn't feel like I was about to get fired.

So when this happy family paddled into view, I was pretty ecstatic. As ecstatic as a grown-ass man with a drink problem can be at the sight of a mama-duck and her clutch of fluffy-cute balls of chirpy happiness can be, anyway. I fumbled for my camera, exhausted the angles and leant back against my tree like a modern-day Donovan Leitch as the procession of adorableness moved back upriver, out of sight.

Then, in the corner of my eye, a flash of yellow-green at the lip of the weir. I scanned the edge for sign. My fears were soon confirmed when I saw a tiny duckling struggling to get back over the lip of what to him must have seemed like a waterfall. Trying with all his tiny might to be reunited with his family, who were slowly picking their way upriver from whence they'd come. The duckling continued in his efforts, but he was actually faster with his body out of the water, like a scrabbling Jesus, than trying to swim with his tiny webbed feet. I got a shot of his efforts and, my journalistic appetite whetted, sensed my first photo-story.
You'll have to enlarge this one...

I'm hamming this up unbelievably, aren't I? Well, tough. The stranded duckling changed tactics, switching sides of the river by actually dashing right across the weir to the more rocky, exposed bank. But to no avail. I tried to coax the mama-duck and her remaining herd back down river, hoping she would aid her little MIA charge. But it proved fruitless. I assumed she'd given up on him as soon as he'd drifted over the edge, and moved away to prevent any further losses. But the little duckling kept trying, for almost an hour. His family had long since meandered around the bend, and I knew they would not return.

The little fella switched sides again, taking rest-breaks beneath the overhanging bushes and picking at flotsam. I took heart in this; he was certainly capable of feeding himself, and knew the value of cover. He returned to his efforts but was frightened away from the lip by the arrival of an excited toddler. Panicked, he headed into the middle and the strong current carried him downstream towards other duck-families, treading water in the calmer shallows of the riverbanks.
By now this yellow duck alone on the river was attracting onlookers; the guilty toddler and her mother, an old couple, a woman and her teenaged daughter. The girl began to take pictures of her own on a mobile phone. The brown mother-ducks watched the intruder carefully, preventing their own young from going near him. I began to get a sick feeling as the mother ducks hissed softly at him, chasing him away when he drifted too close.

He attempted to swim back upstream to the weir, but the midflow current was too strong, the banks populated by hostile ducks blocking his path. He allowed himself to drift back downstream.

At this point I knew what was about to happen. So did the old man, who had walked on ahead of his wife. A little self-consciously, I switched my camera to multi-frame as a mother duck, having warned him off once, set out at him again. The teenage girl emitted a little squeal of shock, and my camera clicked away.
It was over in probably less than 10 seconds. The duck dumped the chick's lifeless body back into the brown water. Her chicks came to inspect, and I could not be sure if they were checking to see if the chick was alive, or if they wanted to take little nibbles of it. The mother shooed them away, and made sure the body drifted downstream away from her clutch.I explained to the old lady in Dutch that the departed's mother was up the river, past the bridge. 'Dat is natuur' I said, and she agreed with a resigned smile. The mother put her arm around her daughter, and I wandered off in slight shock, thinking today would be a good day to get back on drugs.

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So, there you go, kids. I've had this post sitting written without the photographs since I first arrived back, but due to my AIDS-riddled computer (and now, more than likely, external hard-drive) and my general laziness, it's taken me a while. The photos aren't as good as I had hoped, mainly because I got a bit self-conscious when the crowd started to build up. And even though I knew I should get shots of the distraught girl being comforted by her mother or the freaked-out kids, I felt like a bit of a scum-bag by that stage.