I just got back from a field trip to a big garden with a bunch of 3rd graders. It was definitely educational to say the least. The highlight of this field trip (besides walking around for 3 hours with nothing specific to do or learn) was the ducks at the pond. All of the kids were very excited to head off to the pond to feed the ducks the bread which everyone brought. (Later someone saw a sign that said the ducks were on a special diet and not to feed them bread — whoops!)

There was a momma duck with 3 little ducklings swimming in the pond. There were at least 3 male ducks also around this general area. One of the male ducks decides to “chase” the momma duck eventually landing on top of her while she was in the water. He proceeds to do his business with her as she’s pushed underwater. She gets to come up for air every now and then, but honestly, if you’d walked up at this point, you might not ever have seen her underneath. Two of the male ducks decide they are jealous or something and start harassing the one male duck who’s doing his business. Eventually, the male duck finishes and the momma duck swims away with her ducklings.

As I’m standing there next to one of the fathers also chaperoning, I look at him questioning how we explain this to the group of kids. The kids were going on about how mean those ducks were trying to drown the momma duck and all — I think some of them wanted to jump in and save the momma duck, but most of them calmed down when they saw the momma duck swim off. That is, except for the ones who left during the excitement. They started telling people that the momma duck had died. I think it was kinda of funny with the rumors that went around — the kids telling the teachers about what had happened. I certainly didn’t want to be the one to explain it to them — so yeah, those really mean ducks were beating up on the momma duck. We’ll leave it at that.