Well, here’s something to add a little light to the all-permeating gloom right now – a whole bunch of museums all over the world trying to get one up on each other – with their best pictures of a duck.

It all started when the good people of the Museum of English Rural Life set a challenge for their friends at the British Museum.

hey @britishmuseum give us your best duck — The Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) January 4, 2019

And it escalated from there. Like, it really escalated.

1.

Can’t. They gave them all to us. pic.twitter.com/Up8TJFp29K — Natural History Museum (@NHM_London) January 4, 2019

2.

next you’ll be telling us they gave away all their books too — The Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) January 4, 2019

3.

Ahem. We still have quite a few pic.twitter.com/jYnOyhLfNy — BL Prints & Drawings (@BL_prints) January 4, 2019

4.

Yeah but pic.twitter.com/4qPn6nzoWj — Natural History Museum (@NHM_London) January 4, 2019

5.

6.

Bet it’s not as fast as our duck, Mallard. *mic drop* pic.twitter.com/nujNBOPqDu — National Railway Museum (@railwaymuseum) January 7, 2019

7.

Buuut…can your duck float as well @railwaymuseum? May we present our 1943 GMC DUKW amphibious vehicle: https://t.co/uDgJkg4Mf6 (We were staying out of the international museum duck hunt since, y’know, our collection is more guns than ducks, but we couldn’t let this lie) pic.twitter.com/h9BAP9N0aO — National Army Museum (@NAM_London) January 7, 2019

8.

We’re not @britishmusem but here across the pond we have a bird that is quite duck-like! https://t.co/eYGKog10bp pic.twitter.com/nZyKVLKrKY — J. Paul Getty Museum (@GettyMuseum) January 4, 2019

9.

guys have you even seen a duck — The Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) January 4, 2019

10.

Ahem! I think you’ll find @sciencemuseum has the best duck: this is one of nearly 30k plastic ducks swept overboard in North Pacific in 1992 +washed up in Sitka, Alaska. It was used by Curtis Ebbesmeyer + other oceanographers, to track drift patterns https://t.co/vETH6XDfg2 pic.twitter.com/vpV9D6scWl — Dr Elizabeth Bruton ️‍ (@lizbruton) January 4, 2019

11.

and doesn’t it look smug — The Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) January 4, 2019

12.

We aren’t sending our best… pic.twitter.com/kI2SNkKX3i — Radcliffe Observatory Ducks (@OxQuackademics) January 4, 2019

13.

pic.twitter.com/uctPJqJHdm — The Museum of English Rural Life (@TheMERL) January 4, 2019

14.

You want ducks? We’ve got ducks. But they’re all, er…resting. pic.twitter.com/O9p21KuULY — Spadina Museum (@SpadinaMuseum) January 4, 2019

15.