A dog-like duck – jumping for food.

This past Saturday, I was at a family picnic at the local state forest. We were at one of the lakes, which had quite a decent sized flock of ducks in it. We of course had to feed the ducks, so at one point, we took three hot dog buns and started tearing off little bits, tossing them to the white, waddling birds. One in particular was quite cool – instead of looking at the food and wandering with the other birds, he (she?) kept coming right up to my feet, standing and looking up at me. At me, not at the food in my hands. It was very dog-like. A bit strange, for sure, but still pretty neat.

What’s more is, this duck would jump for food. It was one of the strangest things I’ve seen in quite a while. I’d hold a piece of bread up, he’d bend his knees, and jump (usually flapping his wings a bit while in the air). I’ve got a picture of him in mid-jump; as soon as I dump the photos off of the digital camera I’ll put the photo on this post. I really liked the little guy. If I had any idea as to how I’d care for him, I might have considered bringing the guy home.

Apparently, I and my family aren’t the only ones to have discovered that ducks will sometimes jump for food. The top results for “jumping duck” at Google Video yields some goodies.

Update: I added the photo of Super Duck. If you look at the bottom of the picture, you can actually see where his feet aren’t on the ground.