Mother duck makes annual traffic-stopping trip
Reuters Friday June 16, 06:16 PM
file image of a duck and ducklings from Hubei, China.
DUBLIN (Reuters) - A mother duck brought traffic in central Dublin
to a standstill for an annual event on Friday as she marched her
seven ducklings to a pond for their first swim.
The duck, encouraged by delighted passersby, was relocating her
young from their birthplace in the grounds of Trinity College to
St. Stephen's Green, the city's historic public park, around half a
mile away.
"She's been doing it for about the last six or seven years now --
laying her eggs at the college and then taking the babies to the
green," Trinity groundsman David Hackett told Reuters.
"Usually she's good and picks an evening when it's quiet to waddle
them up the street but sometimes she doesn't and in the past we've
had to have the police help us out with the traffic."
This time two members of Trinity's zoology department escorted the
new family safely along several busy streets.
