Newly installed security alarms at the British royal family’s summer estate in Scotland are going off ”day and night” thanks to the peregrinations of seven Indian runner ducks.
The ducks — named Arabella, Antoine, Parsley, Sage, Rose, Mary and Thyme — were acquired by Prince Charles as environmentally friendly, free-range pest controllers around Birkhall, his getaway within the Balmoral grounds.
Security at Balmoral has been upgraded after a series of embarrasing intrusions at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, with underground sensors buried under paths and lawns.
But no one reckoned on web-footed intruders.
”The ducks are setting off the alarms day and night,” an estate source was quoted as saying in The Times newspaper on Wednesday.
”The seven of them going across the lawn is enought to trigger the system. The noise of the webbed feet on the ground is easily picked up by the sensors.”
Indian runners are extremely active, the newspaper explained, and unlike other ducks, run rather than waddle.
Their taste for worms, slugs and insects makes them ideal for pest control — a plus for Charles, a champion of all things organic. They also like to nibble on grass, so they double as living lawn mowers. – Sapa-AFP