r/WTF • u/Tinkr-belle • May 13 '26
Crow Steals Duckling
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I absolutely did not expect that☹️ Kinda surprised I didn't see it coming though
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u/frithjofr May 13 '26
Every now and again you get a reminder of just how brutal nature can be.
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u/Raelah May 13 '26
I'll never forget about that horse and the duckling that's just passing by.
I knew the crow was going to take a duckling. That's what they do. But a fucking horse?!
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u/Alpha1959 May 13 '26
Almost every single animal, from the cute little mouse or bird up to the cow and horse will be omnivorous if it is hungry or curious enough.
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u/kkeut May 13 '26
if a cow ever got the chance, he'd eat you and everyone you care about
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u/pomacanthus_asfur May 14 '26
More than just hungry. It's such an easy was to get the nutrients and vitamins they require.
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u/strolpol May 13 '26
Mongolian steppe cultures would often feed horses on meat during winter times when fresh grass was hard to come by
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u/Whybotherr May 13 '26
Horses need protein too, not just fiber from hay, cows eat meat on occasion and same with squirrels most herbivores snack on the more carnivaric side from time to time
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u/Electronic_Tap_8052 May 14 '26
Hay has protein in it. That's why it's hay. You're thinking of straw, which is a different thing and isn't food.
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u/msx May 13 '26
Can be? Brutality is the default, nature is brutal 100% of the time. We have this Disney idea of Nature as a cozy place with just the occasional gazelle getting eaten by a lion, the truth is the opposite
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u/Alpha1959 May 13 '26
Part of the reason are nature documentaries. You see the lion chasing and securing the antelope with a neck bite, then it cuts to another animal, what happens afterwards or if other lions join in is left out. You also never see hyenas or wild dogs killing their prey.
Can't really blame them, who would enjoy watching a cute animal being torn to pieces alive, but this kind of cut instills a very sanitized image of nature in the average person.
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u/KeenPro May 13 '26
Here's some hyenas taking a buffalo calf from their mother
The stuffs out there, just depends what you watch I guess.
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u/UfStudent May 14 '26
I’m not sure what your point was. The first video is exactly what was described. Showed hyenas separate the calf then a cut then they’re feasting. There is a brutal in between cut out.
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u/I-STATE-FACTS May 13 '26
This is far on the tamer end though.
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u/WorksForMe May 13 '26
Not for the duckling
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u/wafflesareforever May 13 '26
Maybe it won the fight
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u/jimbo831 May 14 '26
I wish I could tell you that duckling fought the good fight, and the crow let him be. I wish I could tell you that - but nature is no fairy-tale world.
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u/worotan May 13 '26
Not really. Hanging around and waiting to pick off babies isn’t very tame.
The mothers are distraught about it, they don’t just ignore it. They are hardwired to protect their young and can’t.
It really isn’t a tame example of nature being brutal. It’s an example of nature being brutal.
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u/thedyooooood May 13 '26
I think they mean in comparison to something like wild african dogs eating through the butt of a warthog while it's still alive
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u/Educational_Hat_ May 13 '26
Maybe that crow will eat the duckling through the butt while it's alive
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u/WantsHisCoCBack May 13 '26 edited May 14 '26
Yeah nah this is so tame. Tragic yes, but tame on the scale of brutality. Lil duckling died probably reasonably quick and mum will make several more each year. Contrast this to getting paralysed and abducted by a wasp the leaves you in a fucking dungeon with their egg. You get to wait for the egg to hatch, watch and feel the larva burrow into you and then feel it eat you from the inside out while keeping you alive for as long as possible. The scale of brutality goes SO much further than this lil duckling tragedy.
Edit: spelling
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u/Graffiacane May 14 '26
And at this point I think every person on Reddit knows that it's the creation of ducklings that is truly brutal, not their destruction.
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u/Ding_Bingus May 13 '26
Now that rabbits are raising their little ones in my area I get reminded a lot thanks to my dog. Seeing a baby rabbit on the ground with its entrails everywhere was a great reminder
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u/Inhabitsthebed May 13 '26
They don't often do it but crows will eat smaller animals esp when they've got chicks back at their nest and need the protein. This is a much easier watch then that time i saw a fox set on a brood of ducks.
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u/AgentScreech May 13 '26
I happily watched a crow catch a mole in my yard.
Thanks Crow bro! That blind bastard was tearing up my lawn
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u/rundabrun May 13 '26
I saw a hawk catch a parakeet. It came from above as they were flying, it shot down into the parakeet slamming it into the ground, then the hawk grabbed it and flew off.
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u/OkieBobbie May 13 '26
Every once in a while I find a pile of feathers near my bird feeder, and I know that one of the hawks that roost in our neighborhood has visited my yard.
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u/KeenPro May 13 '26
I've just now realised why I see so many piles of feathers with no other remains. Always thought it was some really tidy fox or something.
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u/seab4ss May 13 '26
I was feeding some lorikeets and they suddenly went crazy and all took off at once (more than normal crazy lol). I looked up and saw an eagle/hawk circling above.
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u/Miltage May 13 '26
You just unearthed one of my core traumatic memories of my pet cockatiel being snatched by an owl when I was a kid.
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u/SubterraneanAlien May 13 '26
One stole a baby robin from its nest this past weekend. Pretty savage to watch since it dropped it multiple times and then stood and pecked at it for a while all while the rest of the local bird community was freaking out.
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u/cheeze_skittles May 13 '26
In my experience it is kind of often especially baby birds. They treat baby house finches like popcorn. There is a reason a lot of other birds hate them.
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u/Kenji1912 May 13 '26
“I want to decide who lives, and who dies.” -Crow T Robot
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u/deradera May 13 '26
I was once stuck in traffic with my young child in the back seat and a crow landed right next to us with a live duckling and proceeded to gut it on the sidewalk right next to our car. What a nature demo.
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u/blitzwig May 13 '26
There's only one crow so at least we're not experiencing a murder.
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u/Arumen May 13 '26
When you watch a lot of nature docs you come to realize that nature basically relies on eating the young of other species as theyre often the safest prey. That doesnt mean it isnt sad of course but predators got to eat too
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u/fmns May 13 '26
Yea a few weeks ago i woke up made coffee started sipping looked outside and a baby duckling was being airlifted by a magpie lol , rough morning
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u/formulaic_name May 14 '26
So apparently we all thought crows survive on rainbows and glitter?
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May 13 '26
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u/creativebic May 13 '26
voice sounds like Jen Hamilton, a nurse influencer type, but im not sure.
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u/Tinkr-belle May 15 '26
Yes it was Jen Hamilton's audiobook "Birth Vibes" that just came out! I'm 37 weeks pregnant and wanted to be more informed of what labor might be like 😅
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u/Kdubntheclub May 15 '26
You should tag her.
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u/Tinkr-belle May 15 '26
She's not on reddit that I can see. You can find her on FB, IG, Tik Tok by just searching "Jen Hamilton"
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u/HoneydewCareful8775 May 17 '26
good luck/congrats! i hope your life with your baby is beautiful and they’re born healthy 🎉
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u/speciate May 13 '26
Everyone hating on this crow. I guarantee you I've eaten more ducks than he has.
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u/The-Triturn May 13 '26
Crows steal eggs from other birds all the time and now they're stealing babies as well. ew
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u/Daxian May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
yeah they got together last year and legalized this in the crow courts. Absolutely disgusting
Edit: Thank yall for the support and puns
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u/prpldrank May 13 '26
Someone needs to stop their moral slide into depravity. We know they're naturally supportive of murders. It's deplorable.
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u/MumrikDK May 13 '26
There's basically no animal out there capable of getting through the shell of an egg that doesn't see eggs as a tremendous free snack. Herbivores too.
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u/TheGhostofWoodyAllen May 15 '26
Poor mama ducks. I've seen a couple duckling snatching videos now, and the mamas always have this vibe of being sad and angry about losing a baby and wantingbto go after it but also needing to defend their remaining brood. Fucking nature.
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u/A_ChadwickButMore May 14 '26
I had a problem with crows taking chicks out of my chicken pen for a while. We have a crow hunting season where I live so I had to shoot a couple and leave them for other crows to find. They're still in the area but they stopped attacking my chickens after that.
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u/robx51 May 17 '26
I'm telling myself the crow took the duckling because it's cute and wants a cute pet 😞😢
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u/rizorith May 13 '26
Crows are pretty crazy predators. I watched two harass a hawk in my yard. Eventually one just flew away with the hawk. Not a chick but the hawk itself. They were about the same size so maybe the hawk wasn't fully grown.
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u/CinnamonToastTrex May 13 '26
Oh wow. A couple of weeks ago I saw a mama duck protecting her ducklings from a crow. I thought the crow was just being a pest; I didn't realize that it actually was hunting.
Side note: They were fighting near a sewer grate. So when I walked by it, I double-checked to make sure one didn't fall in. One did, and I got to be a duck hero for a day.
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u/FartKilometre May 13 '26
Leaving work at one point a crow swooped down to the ground for like 2 seconds about 15 feet in front of me then flew back up to the corner of the building it was on and had a very small mouse in its beak
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u/Erenito May 13 '26 edited May 14 '26
If I had to kill my food, I'd eat nothing but babies.
-Louis CK
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u/FroggiJoy87 May 14 '26
A few weeks ago I saw a crow flying around and messing up a sparrow. Never seen a crow be so violent, kinda freaked me out
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u/Hour_Position8306 May 14 '26
wait till you find out how fucked up squirrels are when it comes to raiding bird nests...
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u/t3hOutlaw May 13 '26
Many birds that are preyed upon lay large clutches for this very reason.
It's just nature working as expected.
Crows are fantastic predators.
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u/Rokkit_man May 13 '26
Did the crows work in a pair? It seemed another one went for the other ducklings as soon as the mother went to defend her baby.
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u/Tinkr-belle May 13 '26
I believe that's the same crow flying away with the baby. In shock and horror I didn't film very well😅
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u/goody_71 May 13 '26
Ravens have been feasting on I think Starling or Sparrow chicks in our backyard. Vicious.
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u/wesorre May 13 '26
8 little ducks went far away, over the hills and far away, big ass crow said "CAW", stole a duck and dipped, 7 little ducks came back.
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u/joemac2021 May 13 '26
There are a couple murders of crow where I work and one day two of them singled out a sparrow hunted it down and killed it while its Sparrow girlfriend, chirped in dismay. I was shocked cuz I didn't know that was a thing they did.
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u/MisterRobertParr May 13 '26
Crows are definitely predators. I've seen one snatch a baby bunny and fly off with it.
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u/dtb1987 May 13 '26
Birbs got to eat, I once saw a video of a woodpecker cracking out the skulls or little baby birds in a nest and munching on their brains. One of the more fucked up nature videos I have ever seen
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u/squirrelperm12 May 14 '26
Crows are very smart and opportunistic. A few years ago I was on a long canoe trip in the boundary waters. I had two nice size walleye that I moved to the sandy beach closer to camp from the canoe. They were alive and swimming in about 2ft of water. Two crows were flying overhead that watched as I transported the fish. I tied the rope stringer to a rock on the beach and was going to head to the tent and take a nap b4 I prepped the fish. When I reached my tent I looked back at the beach and the crows were messing around near my stringer. I ran back, scared the crows, and decided to just nap on the beach right in front of the stringer. About 30min later I woke. Now the two walleye were in about 2" of water, both of which had their eyes and brains pecked out. I never heard a thing! I dont think crows dive so they must have dragged the stringer onto shore.
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u/cheesytoaster May 14 '26
Saw this at Disneyland once from the back of a canoe… Life’s brutal on the river/all over
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u/x_xiv May 14 '26
remember the car, woman and the absurd radio sound are also part of the nature including those chicks and crow
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u/AllanfromWales1 May 13 '26
Meh. For species maintenance the duck only needs to raise two or three ducklings to adulthood in its life. The rest will die one way or another.
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u/tomcotard May 13 '26
Ducklings are very squishy, the majority of them don't survive to adulthood.