
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 24, 1993                   TAG: 9307240163
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TABB                                LENGTH: Medium

HIS POOL PARTIES ARE FOR THE BIRDS

Given a choice between a nearby river or an even closer swimming pool, a mother wild duck took the shorter route in seeking a place to raise her 12 ducklings.

Is Hubert E. "Pat" Scoggin angry that his swimming pool has been taken over by the ducks? Not in the least.

In fact, the ducks seem to have found a soft touch in Scoggin, a retiree who feeds them twice a day with store-bought mash.

"I am an animal lover," said Scoggin, a bachelor. "If I am driving down a road and see a turtle, I stop and get it and put it in a field."

The mother duck sat on her eggs at a nearby construction site, and when they hatched, she could have paraded them a quarter-mile to the Poquoson River, where turtles and rats would have greeted them with open mouths.

Instead, she went in the other direction, crossing two front yards, ducklings in tow, to Scoggin's swimming pool. The mother flew over the waist-high chain-link fence; the ducklings marched through the 2\ -inch squares between the wire.

Scoggin and his six dogs haven't used his 20-by-40-foot pool all summer.

And Scoggin figures the mother duck, having found a safe haven, may well return to the pool in future summers, ducklings in tow. If she does, Scoggin said, she's welcome. He'd like to swim, but he enjoys watching the ducklings grow.

He figures he and his dogs can swim when they're gone.

by CNB