“Now you tell me — is he not the cutest creature ever?”

A bittersweet story, told over six days.   Words and pictures by Betsy Lentz.

A big announcement! The baby mallards hatched yesterday! About eight little baby ducklings were up in the nest in the tree with the mommy duck! And then, only hours later, they had all left … except I saw there was one baby left there all by himself. I left him there in case the mommy might come back for him. And then late in the day I saw he was on the ground under the tree. Dave had come home by then and he went to look for the mommy and ducklings so we could try to reunite him with them, but they are nowhere to be found.

So, we ended up taking the duckling inside, putting him in a box with a lightbulb for heat. And first thing this morning I went to Agway for duckling food.

He’s just as cute as could possibly be! He looks like one of those little “Peeps” (marshmallow chicks) except he has a bill and he’s colored yellow and green(ish). And it’s fascinating to watch him — he jumps around, and grooms himself, and chirps almost nonstop, like a little songbird. And if he sees a fly, he chases it, even though he’s only a day old. I had to encourage him to eat the grain and water I got him, and he’s getting the hang of it now.

One issue is that they say the ducklings need water to drink at all times, but if I leave water with him in the box, inevitably he falls in it and gets wet, which they say is not good (he’ll get cold because he doesn’t have his regular feathers yet). In fact, the first time, he fell in the water, got wet, AND couldn’t seem to get up off his back! So I end up just putting him on the floor with me and hanging out with him and helping him drink and eat.

“Vulcan Nerve Pinch Thing”

…spending almost all day Friday taking care of the duckling, who we have named Goober (for now). I’m starting to wonder if I really have time for all this responsibility! The thing about Goober is that he wants to be with his mommy or daddy all the time. When we put him in the cage (he’s now in a cat carrier which has a gate in the front), he usually cheeps loudly and throws himself against the cage. In fact last night, all his cheeping and knocking against the cage kept me awake and I had to sleep on the floor in the exercise room (since we don’t have a couch yet).

Today, we took Goober outside and he followed us and staring chasing and eating the tiny little bugs that fly low to the ground. It was a lot of work for such a tiny amount of food! Fortunately for Goober, he can stock up on the grain food afterwards.

Another cute thing about Goober is how he can be running around catching bugs, but if you pick him up and pet him, he conks out within seconds — it’s like that Vulcan nerve pinch thing! And lots of times he just climbs up into your lap and then into the palm of your hand, and he’ll fall asleep there.

He sure is an amazing little creature!

My big dilemma

Goober has the eating and drinking thing down pat now. What ducks do is they eat some food and then have some water and wash it down, so they go back and forth. He’s really packing away the food now!

We moved him back into the box from the cat carrier, because he was trying to get through the bars in the cat carrier and we were afraid he would hurt himself. But the box is only a short-term solution because it won’t be long before he can jump out of it.

Now when I bring him out of the box in the morning he runs around like mad — he has all this pent-up energy and he’s all excited to be out.

As you know, my big dilemma now is that I’ve been doing research on the web, and some of what I’m reading suggests that Goober may be better off if I bring him to a professional rehaber. They know how to raise him and give him the natural foods he would eat (greens, bugs) and I think their goal is to then release him into the wild. Plus, maybe he could be with some other ducklings. I probably should do this for him, but I’m so attached to him now, it makes me cry to think of it!

Six More Cute Things About Goober

1. When he falls asleep, his eyelids close from the bottom up (so he has lower lids, not upper lids).

2. Whenever I walk away from him, he runs like mad to follow me.

3. He loves to climb up on my lap and go to sleep. Often he crawls up to the crook of my arm and snuggles his face in there, so all I see is his back.

4. He has a repertoire of different chirps: one is three notes going upward (like “do, re, mi”); another is 4 to 6 chirps in a row, all the same note; rarely, he’ll do a single note that raises up or down at the end and therefore is extra cute. There’s probably more but that’s all I’ve isolated.

5. He doesn’t get discouraged when he falls down or slips, which happens all the time. He just gets up, dusts himself off, and starts running or jumping again.

6. He’s very clean — he’s always grooming himself.

You don’t get the full Gooby experience from the pictures

These are three photos of Gooby on my lap that were taken in quick succession by Dave, and you can see how in the first two he’s awake and the third he’s asleep. That’s how he was, one minute wide awake, the next his eyes shut and his head starts leaning over.

One thought I had about the pictures is …You don’t get the full Gooby experience from the pictures. You don’t get the sounds and the movement and the touch. If the picture had sound, you’d hear he’s almost constantly chirping in a soothing manner… bup-bup-bup… bup-bup-bup-bup-bup .. . bup-bup.

It reminds me of purring — in that it reassures you that he’s there and he feels fine. I have no idea if that’s the true purpose of it, but that’s how it makes me feel. Plus you can pet him and he feels warm and soft.

Goober starts his new life (sniff, sniff)

Yesterday, I called a wildlife rehabber who specializes in “waterfowl” and unfortunately she confirmed that Goober would be better off in her care, and with other ducklings, and that I should bring him in “the sooner the better”.

I was so sad and said I wasn’t sure if I could bring him in today (meaning yesterday) but I would see, and if not, I could definitely bring him in tomorrow. In reality, I could bring him in right away, I just didn’t want to! Couldn’t I just have one more day? So I hung up and thought it over and heard the words “the sooner the better” ringing in my ears. And also realized it was only going to be harder, the longer I waited. So I called back and said I could bring him in. I put Goober in the cat carrier on a nice soft towel along with his water, and put him in the passenger sear of the car facing me so he could see me, and drove off. He had no problem with the car ride, even though he tended to slide around as I had to stop or accelerate. He was as cute as always. And I tried not to cry, since that would be embarrassing if I was a basket case when I turned him over.

The rehabber is near Broadway, NJ, which is on Route 57 (on the way toward Washington), down a long driveway and in a nice woodsy area. When I arrived, I met two young women leaving the place who had just dropped off some mice (not sure why they need rehabbing!) and of course they said how cute Goober was and I told him how great he was and they said “Why are you bringing him in then, why don’t you keep him?” And I almost cried then and there! But I just told them it was better for Goober.

Once inside, the rehabber had me fill out paperwork and she put Goober in a wooden box in the back room, with a mirror, which will apparently make him think there’s another duckling there. She said after awhile she would put him with some other ducklings, and then after a couple months (they become adults in a couple months), he would be released to some nice area, possibly to Merrill Creek Reservoir (which I know is really nice and they don’t allow hunting there).

I felt sad because I could tell she wasn’t going to interact with Goober and I felt he would be lonely … but the whole point was to get him unattached to humans and to bond with ducks. But still, it was hard to see how living with other ducks could be better than staying with me! But I just have to take it on faith.

So the rest of the day, I cried on and off and I think you’re right that this is a sign from Harley that I should get a kitten, because it brought me so much joy to take care of a little creature. I could always get another duckling — a domestic one. But kittens are a lot easier. And of course, I don’t know what ducks are like when they grow up … But maybe I can get a kitten and a duckling!

Anyway, I have to remember that Goober would have died Thursday night if it weren’t for us. And that now he has a better chance of survival than any of his siblings, since he’ll be in protective care until he’s grown. So everything is for the best.

It’s hard for me to imagine they could be like Goober

One thing I couldn’t get a clear answer on was what would happen if we kept him with the intent to care for him for the rest of his life. Rather than with the intent to release him to the wild later (in which case, it was clear he wouldn’t be prepared unless I gave him to a rehaber). I got the impression that somehow he’d be “betwixt and between” (I think that’s an expression) — he’d be drawn to the wild by instinct but drawn to me as his imprinted mother. Like you mentioned, he might be drawn to migrate in the winter but not have the skills to do it. And then he would be in jeopardy. But I wasn’t completely clear on this, and so I’m having all these doubts. But that’s just typical me …always second guessing. But I think you’re right that living his natural life in the wild with other ducks and being able to fly and migrate is pretty exciting.

Dave told me one of the teachers at the school who hatches ducklings every year (as a science project) says they’re all totally adorable, but it’s hard for me to imagine they could be like Goober. I’ll have to go visit the ducks they hatch this year to see for myself.

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Recently had some more adventures in the true Goober spirit. First, a couple weeks ago, Skeesix brought a little garter snake up on the deck and was playing with it. We (Dave) managed to get it away from Skeezy and noticed it seemed to be regurgitating a worm, except it was stuck. So he pulled it out. (Of course, possibly he was trying to swallow the worm, and was now deprived of his meal, but it was the thought that counted). Then he put him on the riverbank and he slithered away. I have retroactively named the snake Sam.

Then, last weekend after the record rainfall on Saturday, we discovered a baby squirrel on the ground with his eyes still closed, although he was not that tiny. Initially, I was worried he might be sick and we should stay away. But then, we noticed a second baby squirrel a few feet away, also with eyes closed. Both were moving just a little bit. Initially I was alarmed — was this a mysterious baby squirrel plague? But then Dave hypothesized that the squirrels nest had been flooded and they fell out, and that made more sense. I said we should put the two of them back together so they could snuggle up, which they did. And we put a fallen tree branch over them protectively. And I named them Heckel and Jeckel.

Then I located a squirrel rehabilitator (thanks to Goober, I knew how to locate rehabilitators) — at Woodlands Wildlife Refuge (or something like that). She said to put the squirrels in a box with a cloth for warmth and wait to see if the Mom found them; if they weren’t discovered by mom by late afternoon, we should bring them in to rehab. Which is what we ended up doing. The rehabber checked them out and said they looked healthy other than a few abrasions from the fall, and some fleas. At the rehab place, there were skunks, possums, raccoons and even some kind of wildcat.