Our family is visiting Durham, in the part of England called Northumberland.  Today we were going for a morning walk with our friend Penny down by the river Wear.  When we walked by an ice cream shop we noticed a momma duck and eleven little baby ducklings!  They were really cute!  They were small enough that I could hold one in my hand. (But I didn’t.) They had tiny little webbed feet and their bodies were covered with fluffy down with only teeny tiny wings.  They were pecking all over the ground, picking up little pieces of ice cream cones left the day before. 

We stopped to watch them.  The momma duck started to cross the pathway once, but turned around.  Kai and I found some pieces of broken ice cream cones along the path and we picked them up and we scattered them out for the little ducklings.  My dad was standing in the path really still, and some of the ducklings started to walk between his legs! 

Then, the momma duck saw an opening to cross the path to the river, and so she went across and all eleven ducklings followed behind her.  One by one they PLOPPED into the river!  A couple of them hopped back out again and then plopped in a second time.  And they all began swimming behind their momma.  But there was one problem.  The current was carrying two of them downstream under the bridge but on the wrong side of the bridge pier from their momma.  At first they were swimming slowly against the current. But then, suddenly, they ZOOMED around the corner!  They were safely on their way.  I wish you could have seen it, because it was SO cute!