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On June 12 Twitter user @radio_skyblue12 tweeted about coming across a family of ducks during a trip to a neighborhood Lawson convenience store, uploading a photo along with the caption: “Look at these unexpected shoppers I ran into! What a surprise.”

This cute family duck photo quickly circulated around the popular social networking site, and became a hot topic among Japanese Twitter users. The post was in turn met with numerous replies, additional sightings, and other duck tales by fellow users, and has since been retweeted over 24,000 times.

This is the Lawson convenience store, located in front of Okubo Station in Akashi City, Hyogo Prefecture, where the brood of spot-billed ducklings, or karugamo in Japanese, was spotted by @radio_skyblue12 on the morning of the 12th.

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After snapping and uploaded a photo of the cute visitors, users flocked to respond with comments like:

“This is so cute (*´ω`*)”
“Dear customers, please line up in single file♪”
“It’s so cute that the Lawson ducks are on the snack aisle(*´ω`*)”
“…Looks like the mama duck’s got her eye on those Choco Pies”
“It’s like the mama duck is picking out snacks for them ( ⁰⊖⁰ )”
“Wait a sec, just how the heck did they get in there?”
“They came to celebrate Lawson’s 40th Anniversary.”

But @radio_skyblue12 wasn’t the only one that noticed the unusual customers inside the store that day. A few hours later, another shot of the duck family surfaced on Twitter.

▼ “Hey, there’s a duck mother duck with her chicks at Lawson. They’re just too cute!”

The ducks appeared to be healthy and happy, but neither Lawson staff nor the appropriate department at city hall were sure how to take a quack at the issue, saying that it was the first time they’d ever encountered such a thing.

But according to some of the other stories posted in response, it looks like duck sightings similar to these aren’t as uncommon in Japan as you might think! Families of spot-billed ducks have also been sighted at Disneyland, university campuses, or just taking a leisurely stroll around town.

▼ “At Disney now. Came across this mother duck and her ducklings”

▼ “A family of ducks visited our university today! A trail of ducklings following their mother came waddling through the main gate onto campus and hid behind some bushes. If you see them around, take care to watch over them! #chuogakuin”

▼ “This duck family was out for a stroll and caused a panic on the sidewalk”

https://twitter.com/0615hana/status/607048410194051072

One thing’s for sure, you can always count on cute animal posts like these to put a smile on your face when you’re having a fowl day.

Source: Naver Matome, Twitter
Top image: Twitter
Insert images: Pochi Pochi, Twitter (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)