SPRING is just around the corner and a Donnybrook woman has already had a close encounter with a clutch of very cute hatchlings.
Bregje Breedveld was walking her dogs in bush on the outskirts of Donnybrook on Friday afternoon when she encountered a clutch of five very cute, very vulnerable, newly hatched ducklings.
Ms Breedveld, who is a professional dog trainer, kept her dogs under strict control as the ducklings attempted to adopt her smallest dog as their new mother and ran and played under all of their feet.
She said it was a big test in self control for the dogs.
Ms Breedveld and her dogs tried to outrun the ducklings, hoping their mother would appear and take charge of them, only to see two of them almost immediately picked off by crows.
No parents appeared to help the apparently orphaned babies.
Not wanting to consign the remaining three to the same fate, Ms Breedveld called a friend to the rescue with a box, and is now raising them until they are big enough to return to the bush.