A few years ago, my lovely partner and I saw a mother duck and her young ducklings surrounded by a murder of crows on someone’s front lawn. As you can imagine:

• the crows were intent on helping themselves to a snack or two; and

• the poor mother was looking pretty stressed and had her work cut out to protect her young.

The mother’s problem was that the local river was about 300 metres away down the road and shepherding her flightless young chicks that far back to the water (ducks and water go great – crows and water not so) was impossible without losing some or all of them.

So the good Mrs and I decided to intervene by shooing the crows away and guiding the ducks back to the river. Suffice to say, we felt pretty pleased with ourselves as we watched the young family take to the water. As we walked back up the road, the crows (now on the roof of the house) made it very clear what they thought too!

We then went to the local Chinese restaurant to celebrate the rightful future of ducks.

In the spirit of saving young ducklings, Andrew Bolt (via Rita Panahi) has shared this beautiful video – it’ll make your heart warm: