Last night, I was sitting on the couch when I just happened to notice something outside.  I am always ready to protect my flock if I hear anything suspicious outside.

I went outside with my flashlight, and one of the raccoons was trying to get into my garbage cans.  However, I caught it and shined it in the face with a flashlight.  The raccoon got scared and scurried up the tree making chittering sounds.  This unnamed raccoon then proceeded to stare at my flashlight for several minutes while making a clawing gesture.  I was about 200 feet away.

After that, I went inside and the garbage was not raided in the morning.  Mission accomplished, the raccoon was scared and the garbage was safe.  Thank you for reading the Ducky Blog

AFLAC: "I wear a red leg band, and I am a male Brown Khaki duck.  Henry wanted a duck named Aflac, because he says you have to have a duck named Aflac in your flock.  That's from the Aflac commercials. Henry does not use Aflac insurance, but I wish that he might one day (but he probably won't)."

LUCKY:  "I am a Brown Khaki Campbell female duck that wears a yellow leg band.  Henry named me that because I survived a brutal dog attack on the duck coop.  It killed 6 other ducks.  We were allowed to sleep outside at that time.  One morning, Henry saw me, I had been bitten, but thankfully alive.  We barely escaped death.  I was especially lucky because I had contact with the dog.  I really am Lucky!"

SCRATCHES: "I got that name when a hawk attacked me when I was free ranging, and left a scratch on my beak.  It is now healed, but I still go by Scratches.  I am a Brown Khaki Campbell duck without a leg band, Henry does not need a leg band for me, because he forgot to do it a while ago."

SATURDAY:  "Hi my name is Saturday, I am a Brown Khaki Campbell duck.  One Saturday, a hawk attacked the flock and tried to kill me.  I was smart and flew, and used my new ability of flight to fly away, down by the garbage cans.  Henry was searching for 30 minutes, however he was not able to find me.  This showed that I did know how to hide.  However, everyone was worried about me.  I was too scared to come out, for fear of being killed.  Henry thinks that my ability to stay silent for that long was unique, because usually ducks are very noisy."

POPCORN: "I am a Perkin duck named Popcorn, and I wear a yellow leg band.  I just wear a yellow leg band.  That's all there is to me.  My whole life I just serve the purpose of wearing a yellow leg band.  I am named Popcorn because my leg band color looks like a tub of buttered popcorn.  I am so ordinary that my owner Henry has nothing extraordinary to sayabout me.  But, he still cares!"

MEGA AFLAC:  "I am a male Perkin duck named Mega Aflac, I wear a red band on my leg and was caught on camera reading 'What's Eating my Chickens?'  I got the name Mega Aflac because I am large, and I also do look like Aflac from the commercial.  However, the name Aflac was taken by a duck that came before me.  So, I was named Mega Aflac because I am bigger than the original (in our flock at least)."

MEGA LUCKY: "I am a PErkin duck that does not wear a leg band.  I can be identified as the only female in a flock of 3 Perkin ducks.  You can tell males apart by their orange beaks, and my beak is kid of pale."

PUZZLES:  "I was named Puzzles because my owner was puzzled in what call me there is nothing really special about me and that's why everyone was puzzled about what to name me.  I am a Brown Khaki Campbell duck that does not wear a leg band."

This duck in the photo, Mega Aflac, never bothered to make a nest.  Mega Aflac also doesn't care that he is in the news!  This is because he would much rather be playing with the other ducks.  I don't know the names of the games that they play, but it looks like they sometimes chase each other, and they like it.  Mega Aflac was featured in the news because he looks a lot like the original Aflac duck, but we already named one of our brown khaki campbell ducks Aflac.  So, I named this one Mega Aflac due to his size.

Right now, I am reading with Mega Aflac.  We are reading "What's Killing My Chickens?" by Gail Damerow.  We are reading this book to help keep our chickens and ducks safe from raccoons.  After I got this press coverage, I ate Mega Aflac and bought a new duck.  Just kidding!  I would never eat one of my ducks!  Mega Aflac is still safe, actually he very anxious to go outside, because he loves it out there.  In December, I decided that the best way I could help heat up my ducks was by turning the temperate to negative three degrees.  Just kidding!  For real, I added in heat lamps so all the animals can stay warm now.  Thank you for reading the Ducky Blog!

Alright so, a new Ducky Movie featuring my ducks will be coming out soon.  Here are the steps to making it:

1) I filmed my ducks in front of a green screen, and I then opened it up on a mac book.  I put some footage of the school hallway, and did the green screen effect, because the ducks were filmed in front of a green screen sheet.  The ducks would often poop on the sheet!

2) Next I drop it into iMovie, and I crop it out so that only a minute and 30 seconds of the original footage is in the film.  Originally it was around 13 minutes, and no one wants to watch my boring ducks for 13 minutes.

3) In the editing process, I zoomed in on the ducks faces when they were speaking, and added subtitles so that it appears as if the ducks are speaking.  There is also a picture-in-picture of my hologram, talking about my brand.

Thank you for reading the Ducky blog!

A few weeks ago, I was doing a school project where I filmed my ducks in front of a green screen sheet.  The story of the video is that there are some ducks are lost in my school, and they were trying to get out without being caught by the kids.  They thought the kids would eat them!  During the day of production, I taped a big green screen sheet to the side of my house, and also to the ground.  And then I had the ducks quack there for 13 minutes.  I had to entice them with meal worms to keep them there!  The ducks were sometimes trying to run away, however we were able to keep them under control.  I ran around to where my mom was filming, and just outside of the camera, I would chase them back into the camera frame.

At one point, the full grown Lucky and Aflac (not pictured here) came onto the green sheet, and started trying to take the mealworms from the “ducklings.”  We let them take the mealworms, and so the ducklings had to get other food.  I wrapped it up by ending the film when the ducks were eating.    I do foresee them getting filmed again.  In terms of the holidays, I totally think that we could do a video where the ducks are trying to stay away from the raccoons!   Maybe I will add special effects where there ​are raccoons in the background.  I could find a picture on the internet of a raccoon, and add it to the video by downloading the image and then placing the image into the film.  These ducks are looking forward to getting seen on screen.  Thank you for reading the Ducky Blog.

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Dear Hawk that has been bothering my ducks,

I am sick and tired with you trying to kill my chickens and ducks.  I really would like you to stop as it has been annoying me.  You have been terrorizing my chickens.  How would YOU feel if you were the one who would have to deal with someone trying to kill you each day?  Pretty unhappy, I'm sure.

You have left a scratch on one of my ducks, from yesterday, and that incident really scared the duck.  As a result, I was going to name him "I was almost hawk food."  But, in the end I named him Scratches, which is theoretically the perfect name.  If you are reading this, then just know that if I find your nest, I will evict you from my property.

You have been living on my property and exploiting my chickens for some fun little game of yours.  If you want food, just go look somewhere else.  Go look in a volcano, there's probably lots of food there.  Or, maybe nuclear reactors contain lots of chickens, just asking to be eaten.  So go there, and leave my property.

Thank you.
Henry

​Earlier today, during distance learning, I heard quacking coming from the yard.  I saw a hawk, and I went out and chased it away.  This was the third time this had happened so far.  And the hawk had been stalking my birds for a while.  When I looked closely at one of my ducks, I noticed that it had a small scratch on it.  I put antibacterial cream on it, and locked the ducks in the pen.  This hawk has really been a problem, and I think it's the same one each time.  I'm not sure how I will deal with this hawk.  If you have any advice, please let me know! -Henry