A man has helped a group of ducklings trapped in a building reunite with their mother, after he accidentally stumbled upon the cheeky flock.
Aaron Brown was passing by a building in Daegu Science College when he heard the baby birds crying out for help. He began to trip over himself, trying not to step on the ducklings who were spread out, causing havoc and running up and down a staircase into various rooms.
Though he had no way of knowing, Brown had a hunch their mother would come back to find them. He just had to get them to safety first.
“I didn‘t want to let them out or see them run over,” Brown said. “I didn’t want to leave them to starve so I ran around the building collecting them like a scavenger hunt.”
The animal-lover began to scoop the eight baby ducklings up one-by-one in a desperate attempt to contain them.
He sourced a cardboard box and placed the siblings inside, before plopping the makeshift ‘home’ outside in the sun. The idea was for the ducklings to make enough noise that the mother duck was alerted to their location, he says.
“I waited outside for over an hour hoping the momma would come, and wondering what I was going to do with them.”
His rescue efforts paid off. Within the hour, the mother flew to the large outdoor patch where her babies were waiting. She seemed to know where they were from across the court, running towards the box so she could see her flock once again. Seconds later, the family waddled away in a perfect linear formation, reunited and content.
It was the “most beautiful scene of a momma duck reuniting with her lost ducklings,” Brown said of witnessing the special moment.