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Jumping for Joy
Without warning, the tables turned during the breakfast game. Calvin paddled his little yellow webbed feet right up to the windowsill and snatched the bread right out of my fingers. "Like taking candy from a baby," he seemed to quack. Not to be outdone, Boopsie and Phoebe raced in to grab the leftovers. Bread tumbled off the windowsill into the Seine, instigating a feeding frenzy. With feet and feathers flying, all the ducklings stabbed at floating bread crumbs, oblivious to my presence just above their heads, as they dueled each other with their clothes-pin bills. Quicktime video clip (290K) or higher quality (478K).

Psychology 101 was ancient history. Their approach/ avoidance line had seemingly moved inside my boat (taking after the intrepid water hen who ventured as far as the refrigerator. ). Out of scientific interest, I then conducted some controlled experiments to isolate the factors accounting for the brazen behavior of Aunt Matilda's Fearless Flock.

  • Did the age of bread make a difference?
    No. Day old. Week old. Moldy. These ducklings didn't care as long as they could dunk it in water. The older the bread, they more they dunked.

  • Did the type of bread make a difference?
    No. They attacked all brands, baguette, croissant, quignonnette, Poilane, except Boopsie who seemed to hang back when I offered pain de campagne.

  • Did bread itself make a difference?
    No! (And this is the breakthrough finding of my research.) When the bread was gone, ducks started nibbling my fingers!!! Quicktime video clip (170K) or higher quality (351K)

  • Did microscopic breadcrumbs make a difference?
    By the way, to test the hypothesis that they were continuing to lick bread molecules from my hand, I also offered my left hand. Same result! And it wasn't only hands. Aunt Matilda 's Fearless Flock even pecked at my toes. Quicktime video clip (157K) or higher quality (374K)

Do you understand what this must mean?!! I have discovered a mutant breed of ducks that have developed new fearless genes and are in the early stages of evolving into carnivores!!!

I have submitted a paper detailing these startling findings for publication in an upcoming issue of Scientific American. Exclusive video documentation is being registered with Ripley's Believe It or Not. I have also optioned a screenplay titled The Attack of the Killer Ducks © which I am hopeful will be in movie theaters next summer.

These were clearly ducks of destiny and I had them eating out of my hands. What other tricks did my ducks have up their feathers? I decided to help them climb up another rung on the ladder of evolution. I began by teaching Aunt Matilda and the Fearless Flock to jump. My technique was simple; I elevated the position of my hand holding the enticing morsels of, baguette thereby increasing the vertical distance which the ducks had to attain to achieve their reward.

This worked on all my ducklings except Boopsie, who beat the system by using the momentum of a wave crest. But I was too smart for her. I just kept raising my hand higher and higher. I was looking for that fine line, this time in the vertical dimension, which was low enough to keep my pupils interested, but high enough to make them jump (the same formula Yves Saint Laurent uses for his plunging necklines). Quacktime video clip (110K) (Reset each time to frame 1.)

Calvin would paddle up, jockeying the others for position, boxing them out with his tail the way Patrick Ewing does with his hips. He first feinted a couple of times with a bill-fake and pretended to leap, drawing his opponents off. Then, when the field was clear, Calvin launched himself into the air -- which was no easy task, as anyone who has tried in a swimming pool knows. Calvin coiled his head low, dipped his tail into the water, raised his chest and then

Aunt Matilda was not really much of a jumper, but she became a great coach.
thrust upward, his webbed feet churning like dual propellers. His short winglets flailed the air for added boost. As his body rose up from the water, Calvin elongated his neck and at maximum altitude flattened his head into line, like a Concorde taking off. At the last instant before gravity began to pull him down, he parted his bill and clamped it around the chunk of bread.

Of all the siblings, Calvin had the best technical form. On a perfect jump, his feet would clear the surface for an instant and his tush would flip up out of the river, spraying water in-your-face at the rest of the team caught flat-footed in the water. Calvin, however, had difficulty holding on to the bread, especially after the dunk. The rest of the team in hot pursuit, Calvin always tried to dodge and weave away, leaving a trail of crumbs, and sometimes the whole piece, in his wake.

Aunt Matilda was not really much of a jumper -- it's hard to teach an old duck new tricks -- but she became a great assistant coach. She would stand on the gunnel of the boat where I left pieces of dry baguette and wedge a couple into her bill. When she leaned over the edge preparing to hop down and dunk her mouthful of bread in the river, her Fearless Flock clustered below trying to peck away at breakfast overhead like centers going up after the jump ball. Quicktime video clip (342K) or higher quality (497K)

When she did manage to plop back in the river with her bread intact, Aunt Matilda waltzed away from her pursuers and swallowed the bread herself, just to teach them to jump higher next time. It has been a great timesaver and finger-saver having an assistant coach like Matilda.

To make sure my ducks receive a well-rounded education, I also decided to teach them to dive.

continuation...


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