Normally, in any species, mothers are very protective of their babies. And with how the world is nowadays, you can never be too cautious, even when it looks like strangers mean well. This is exactly what happened with a group of ducklings in a Reddit video, where as soon as a man approached, mama duck didn’t hesitate to attack the guy. Personally, I learned very well in The Legend of Zelda that you shouldn’t mess up with chickens, but don’t try it with ducks, either.
All this misunderstanding went viral since Redditor Kushpool07 shared a very particular video in which a duck attacks a group of young men with all their strength. It was a group of ducks with ducklings crossing a street. When the ducklings were supposed to jump onto the sidewalk, they got stuck on one side of the street. This prompted one of the boys to try to help the birds up, not realizing that the adult ducks were closer than they seemed. Here, both adult birds dove in with what OP called:
Many Reddit users attribute the attack to the fact that the mama duck freaked out because the man was holding a cell phone.
So, this incident may have been mostly due to a stranger approaching the little ones. Also, this human could have a second intention, to record everything to share it on social networks, and this user could not have described better the reaction of the mother:
Now you know, if you see them on the street or in a park, keep an eye out for groups of ducks. You may be too close to them, and they may happen to be quite overprotective with the younger ones. They also seem to be a somewhat territorial bird species, especially regarding their nests and eggs.