Make way for the waddling duck, with water-proof feathers, as dog’s challenger to the title as man’s best friend.
Read on.
An irreproachable duck (Anas luzonica) grabbed the memory of an incredulous young boy who accidentally dropped his rubber footwear down a slope in a secluded barangay in Quezon southeast of the national capital.
The dubling duck, known as “papan” or “pato” in some areas of the archipelago, is endemic to the Philippines, with as few as 5,000 remaining, not helped by overhunting and habitat loss.
The unidentified boy, then playing on August 15 in the open field, had his white footwear pair slip through his foot, dropped down the slope with the nearest thoughts he would lose it.
But the duck, from the same farm, chased the moment for the boy and onlooker Myla Aguila, then walking around the mountainous sitio of barangay Madaguldol when her attention was trapped by the incident.
Instead of clambering down through the mud, the boy just watched as the white duck picked up his white rubber footwear.
It was not clear why there was a video of the incident.
But talk of lucky breaks.
In the video, the duck drops the left flip-flop three times but keeps picking it back up in its beak while waddling up the bank.
The duck finally reaches to the top and hands back the slipper to the grateful boy.
Aguila said: “I asked around, and people told me that the duck is not owned by the boy. But they come from that same small village so they must be friends.
‘’I thought it was very sweet the way the duck kept picking up the shoe and giving it back to him.’’
The percipient duck in the video is a Philippines duck, which is usually raised for commercial purposes, mainly because of their eggs.
It eats shrimp, fish, insects, and vegetation, and it frequents all types of wetlands.