On Easter Sunday this year, the Duchess of Sussex posted an adorable IG video of a mother duck and her ducklings crossing the driveway of Harry and Meghan’s Montecito home. In the video, Meghan was waiting by some bushes and when the ducks stepped into frame, Meghan stepped out too, in awe of the mama duck and her babies. It was really sweet and Easter-themed, so of course the British and Australian tabloids ran hundreds of stories about how the duck video was MADE OF LIES! All of that analysis and they missed the most significant lie of all: the video was probably days or weeks old! We know that now because Oprah told a story about Harry calling her on Easter Saturday. Harry asked Oprah if they could relocate their ducks to her property, because she has a lake and they only have a stream (they also have a koi pond and a waterfall, but that’s neither here nor there). Here’s Oprah telling the story of how chaos ensued:
🤣🤣
Oprah, Prince Harry, Duchess Meghan & The Ducks! 🦆 pic.twitter.com/KGnMj8pNd9
— Nelly (@ValleyGirl629) July 16, 2025
As you can hear, Oprah does her own impression of Harry, who called her and said, “Sorry to bother you, O, but we have a duck problem here.” Harry explained the situation, that “A duck had come into their yard and laid their eggs and had these chicks. And he said, ‘Our pond is a stream, we don’t have a pond, so can we bring the ducks over to your pond?'” Oprah said Gayle King’s grandkids were there and she wanted the kids to see the ducks, but Harry was like, no, we need to do the duck transfer immediately, we’re coming over now.
Harry and Meghan then drove the duck fam over to Oprah’s property and as soon as the car door opened, Mama Duck took off like a bat out of hell: “As he opens the door, the mama duck flies out. And he’s got all the baby ducks in a box. We’re chasing the mama duck who is in the front yard and has flown to the other side. We’ve got her ducks. Harry’s running after, Meghan gets out, she’s running after, chasing the mom and trying to get her to come back to her ducks. And for like half an hour, we’re running around with the ducks in a box. We have video. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.” I love this story. I love the image of Harry and Meghan chasing after a duck on Oprah’s massive property while Oprah filmed it. It’s always fun when the Calamity Sussexes are around!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Meghan’s IG, CBS/Harpo screengrabs.
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- HOLLYWOOD, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – DECEMBER 03: Oprah Winfrey wearing Nikos Koulis earrings arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Netflix’s ‘The Six Triple Eight’ held at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on December 3, 2024 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 942870606, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Oprah Winfrey, Credit line: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon
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- LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 03: Oprah Winfrey attends the premiere of Netflix’s “The Six Triple Eight” at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on December 03, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.,Image: 943188512, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Oprah Winfrey, Credit line: Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon/Avalon
That’s too kwet✨️❣️✨️
Ooohhh was it keen? Lol
This happens all the time in my neighborhood! 😆😂🤣 Actually not. We have very boring, very chill ducks.
Happy chaos, what a wonderful story.. I sure hope we get video clips of this someday.
I insist on the video!
We have ducks on our farm. Our ducks don’t give duck where you’d like them to go. They’ll get there on their own sweet time unless there’s food involved then they’re all single filing it into their pen like it was their idea…ducks, gotta love them.
😂😂😂 can’t wait for the video! That would be so cute!
(and Harry wants to leave this Montecito haven of understanding neighbours for his British hell? Don’t think so…)
Bingo!!!
Right?! Harry’s biggest problem in Montecito is finding a pond for a mama duck and her ducklings. It must be AWFUL to be Harry Sussex!
This story has me in stitches. Harry must be real comfortable with Oprah to call her O & insist he’s coming over immediately but he did say she’s one of the godmothers. I need the full video it seems like it would be wonderfully wacky
I feel like getting the mama in the car was so difficult that Harry was like – no
No. Nope. We can’t do that again. We can’t go through that again. It took us three hours to get her in here. She has pooped in the ac ducts. She’s pecking me. I’ve got wood lice now. We need to do this.
😂😂😂😂
Your’re funny. That’s totally believable.
You know that Harry was like why are we putting a duck and her ducklings in this car? LOL. This whole story has me cracking up.
I’m playing this montage of duck scrambling across Oprah’s yard in my mind, to the tune of Yakety Sax…🤭🤣
Billy Idle could never be this caring or funny.
He’d probably shoot them.
The Fail are already fuming about this because it shows M and H are on friendly terms with Oprah and it is a funny, heartwarming story. Tabs constantly want to run them down but stories like this contradict their false narrative. This is why it’s good for Meg to be back on Instagram so everyone can see she’s living her best life within a loving family and has supportive friends.
Now that is a video I’d like to see. Hopefully those ducks are behaving themselves in Oprah’s pond.
The mama duck is holding a grudge and flies over to the Sussex’s to poop on Harry’s car 😂🤣
Mama Duck is leaking to the Daily Mail for hard cash. Mama needs to put away for her retirement.
That is the cutest story!! A duck situation and chaos does ensue. So much for they staged the wild ducks for a video and pictures!!
Can you imagine thinking a little family is coming over to release ducks into your pond and it’s this calm pastoral scene and then the door of the car opens and it’s just immediate chaos?!? Like you had this lovely let’s let the kids see us release these ducks,ohhhh they are so cute picture in your head and then a Prince is running around your lawn while holding a box of little ducks with his Princess trying to get the mama duck to realize her babies are right there and everyone is collapsing in laughter non stop 😂🤣
I’m glad Oprah got it on video. That’s a video I would love to see.
Am I the only one confused by this? Is it normal to just kidnap a family of wild ducks to bring them to a pond…?
@Jor, you are joking surely? Kidnap?? Are you gonna call FBI on H&M? 😭😭😂🦆
@Jor I think kidnap is doing some heavy lifting right there, but generally no it’s not odd to move animals if they are in an unsafe environment. Also especially if they have babies. Since Harry and Meghan’s property has a stream it’s probably not the safest for small ducklings. A still pond would be better, and if the mother duck felt they were ready to move she would move them.
Apparently Harry hates his life in Montecito and wants to return to royal duties. It’s a cute story. I don’t know, Harry and Meghan seem to have a blissful life. Why would they want to give that up for the oppressive Royal Family.
Lol I pictured this with the Benny Hill theme going. This is very cute and of course ruins the narrative of the video Meghan posted being some calculated ” plan” ( to show what who knows), so of course the British media is focusing on how Oprah said the Sussexes name.
Was thinking the same thing.
LOL, there was this time last year when I was going to one of my kids’ soccer games. I was going to bring our doodle but not our lab (he’s too big and strong for me to control during a whole game and my husband is one of the coaches so can’t really help.) I don’t remember why but for some reason he was meeting us at the field. So we’re getting ready to load up the minivan with kids and dog and the lab bursts out of the house and is running around the yard. The doodle breaks free from me with the leash on and is also running. My then 12 year old goes to grab the doodle and carry her to the house and she breaks free again and runs after the lab. So he runs to grab the lab and snags his collar and the lab ends up dragging him across the yard, he’s full out on the grass lmao. I grab the doodle and carry her to the house and deposit her (she lost game privileges lol) and we both wrangle the lab and get him inside too.
All this to say that the whole thing was on both ring cameras (for the front door and the driveway) so my husband edited it to the benny hill theme and it still cracks me up because it really was such a shitshow lolol.
😂😂😂😂. Props to you for still attending the game after that.
I did the same, Yakety Sax is the tune.
This is amazing and says SO MUCH about the Sussexes relationship with Oprah. Who calls Oprah and is like “we’re coming over now with the ducks!” Harry that’s who lol.
So cute! It’s great, after all the tabloid trash, when somebody does an unabashedly nice and friendly story about the Sussexes. Of course the story had to happen over here. Thanks, Oprah!
True fact, mom ducks rarely nest near their pond of origin, so maybe this was the mother duck’s original pond to begin with. They lay their eggs somewhere hidden up to a mile from the nest and then, within a day, mom leads the babies to the pond. (I participated in a local duck watch and had to take a class where I learned a lot about nesting mallards. Then I had to follow my assigned mom and protect her and the babies as they all walked in a row across busy 4-lane streets in the middle of the day.)
Oh my goodness. How do you get into a program like this?!?
@FriendlyCrow, contact your local city wildlife group and see if they have a program. These programs tend to be in cities where the ducks face more hazards, like busy roads. In the Washington, DC, area, the group is called City Wildlife
My mind was blown when I watched a nature documentary that had a duck nesting many feet off the ground in a hollow tree. When the ducklings were old enough to go leave the nest, ie able to swim but still without proper feathers, they flung themselves out of the nest like tiny, fuzzy, basejumping thrill seekers. After they BOUNCED off the forest floor and landed they just continued on to the pond like it was business as usual. The Earth and her many inhabitants (with the possible exception of humans) is a wonderous creation.
@Dara, yes, ducklings can drop many feet and be fine, as we learned during training. Your documentary was probably about Wood Ducks. I was originally freaked out when my mother Mallard duck had her babies drop 3-4 feet from a landscaping thing to concrete, but the babies were fine. Every year some mother lays on a rooftop, though, and that requires special measures involving trapping the mother and babies without scaring the mother off.
That program sounds incredible!
Cue Keen & Willie sharing an “adorable” video chasing baby swans around The Beckham’s garden in 3…2…1…
I’d love to see Willy tangle with an adult swan .. those creatures can be mean as hell!
(I once watched from a distance as my sister tried to take a photo of a swan in Ireland, then ended up being chased by the swan … I nearly peed my pants laughing.)
I love this story about the Sussexes! Meghan should turn it into another children’s book.
Presumably Willy will incandescently inform the cygnets that his father owns them and all their relatives.
My five year old daughter once tried to take pics of a few cygnets in a local pond. The cob (male swan) walked up to her hissing. I said to him, ‘Look, my daughter’s just taking photos. You bother her any more, you’re gonna have pretzel neck.” He backed off.
I’m scared to death of Canadian Geese because I’ve heard one too many stories about them lol.
Absolutely, swans can be mean af, we have 2 pair on the private lake where I now live. I can see them from my window right now. Swans are tougher and meaner, they can be used to keep the Canadian Geese from over-populating a location – geese lose to swans so it forces the Canadian Geese to pick another lake or pond.
I had one run-in with a white goose where I had to grab it by the neck, tuck his body under my arm and yeet him into our pond just to get him off my 9 yr old sister who was screaming for her life pinned into a corner by this goose, I yelled “RUN!” to my sister as I yeeted it and we ran like hell back to the house. She mistakenly thought a goose would be just a bigger duck and she found out in a hurry that is not the case at all. Geese aren’t cute and herdable like ducks!
I’ve read about the swans. Grew up knowing about the Canadian Geese. For over 15 years I had an office in a corporate park that overlooked a pond that Canadian Geese used as a layover/nesting area.
Well-intentioned but uninformed people would go to see/feed them. I’m like, “No, no, no, don’t do it”. Hissing, honking and chasing down the interloper/s ensued.
Sandhill Cranes are similar.
Love this Oprah story.
Sooo cute. My family had mallard and muscovy ducks, they go where they want to be! Baby ducks floated on our pond like as if they’re large size cotton balls and it’s sooo damn cute.
I feel the absence of Archie and Lilibeth in that story.
I’m not saying they were or weren’t there, I’m saying I wish they had been name checked.
I don’t think any parent of young children wants them around when they’re relocating a cute duck family. You’d hear nothing but, “Why?! But why dad? Can’t we keep them?”
I love how Oprah let them know that SHE has video.
I love that Harry and Meghan are animal (and bird) lovers.
I have tears in my eyes because I can’t stop laughing. This sounds hilarious
What a delightful story and heart-warming illustration about neighbourlinthisess. But why was mother duck loose in the car? This also reminds me about my own duck story. We had an enclosed courtyard at work, and a mother duck had laid her eggs there. One day while some taff were having lunch in the courtyard , they noticed the mother duck marching around with her ducklings. She marched over a grate, and her little ducklings followed- right through the grate! Everyone rushed to remove the grate and rescue the ducklings. Park services were called and they came and took the family to a lake in the city park.
That photo of Meghan and the duck parade never fails to remind of a fairytale princess.
I need to know whether the mama duck returned to claim her chicks!
It took them 1/2 hour to catch the mother.
It’s so cute and so humanly likeable. Thanks to Oprah for the story.❣️
This is adorable. I don’t see how big O can sit on video like that for too long. Hope we don’t have to wait too long for it. I say it comes out after a particularly nasty article from the Salty Isle, but that could be any time.
All I have to add is
AWWWW!!!
😎😎😎😍😍😍🥰🦆🐤🐤🐤
Cue the Fail interview with duck experts screaming that somehow re-ponding this little family is tantamount to environmental destruction and will lead to a global genocide. Also that Brooklyn Beckham shot the video.