有些動物天生就有一種特性，對它們出生時第一眼看見的東西會留有永恒深刻的印象。

日前一名男子意外成為13只小鴨的媽媽，因為他是這些小鴨破殼而出時看到的第一個移動的東西。

這群小鴨的媽媽在它們孵化出來前就已經被殺死了，為了拯救小鴨，這位名叫瑞克的男子帶走了13顆蛋，并把它們放進孵化器。

當小鴨們被孵化出來時，它們立刻把瑞克認作自己的媽媽，瑞克走到哪，它們就跟到哪。

在接下來幾個星期，瑞克可有的忙活了，他不光要打掃鴨羽毛，還要照顧小鴨子們，這也給了他一個慶祝母親節的新理由。

A man accidentally became a mother to 13 ducklings when their eggs hatched and he was the first moving object they saw.

The process, known as imprinting, is a form of attachment that the ducklings normally use to identify their mother. However, the mother of these ducklings was apparently killed before the eggs hatched.

In an attempt to save the little ducks, the man took the 13 eggs and placed them in an incubator. The eggs hatched, the ducklings first saw the man, named Rick, and now they are attached. This is evidenced in a new viral video with more than 128,000 views.

"She never came back," Rick says in the video of the ducklings' mother. "There's feathers everywhere. The 30-second clip of the ducklings following Rick around was uploaded to YouTube on Sunday by his neighbor Matthew Sargent. A link to the video also found its way to Reddit via Sargent's daughter, Carlisle.

"I asked my dad about what my neighbor plans to do with the ducklings, and apparently he is going to keep them at his home for a while, and train them to use the bathroom in one part of his yard," she commented on Reddit. "My dad said also my neighbor is gonna wait til their oil comes in and then take them to live in the ponds/little lakes in our neighborhood."

Rick will probably be cleaning up more than just feathers over the next few weeks, but he will also have a new reason to celebrate Mother's Day.

（來源：news.yahoo.com 編輯：丹妮）