Magical Ducks

Actually, Mary is a bigger duckophile than I am. (Let's not even mention pigeons…)

My duck obsession began when I was 16. I was visiting Florida with some friends, and we took a walk around a suburban neighborhood and discovered a duck pond. We took about eighteen different pictures of the mallards before it suddenly occurred to us that we have ducks back in Missouri. We were mystified. Had these birds cast some sort of strange spell over us?

Four years later on my first solo trip, my sister Mary joined me for the last week I was in Bellingham, Washington. She fed a gaggle of mallards her breadcrumbs, and I wondered why my hands felt compelled to take photos of this occurrence over and over. A few days later, as we walked along a wetlands boardwalk on the outskirts of town, Mary pointed across the water about twenty yards away. “Look! Ducks!” She fumbled around in her backpack before yanking out a Clif Bar, which she waved to the mallards while quacking at them.

“Uh… Mary, they’re not going to come,” I said, looking around to see if anyone was watching. “Besides, you don’t want to feed them your Clif Bar. Those things are expensive.”

Even as the words left my mouth, I saw that the two mallards were paddling over. Mary tossed them pieces of her energy bar, which they happily gobbled up. That was the day I learned my sister was the duck whisperer, and that is my excuse for my obsession. (Yes, I know that those ducks were probably conditioned to respond to human interference. Don’t confuse my theory with facts.)

The spell continues. Everywhere I go, I feel the strong urge to take pictures of ducks. “Hey look, Shafter,” I whisper to myself. “There’s a mallard— whoa— and it’s in California. Now that’s not a sight you see every day! Snap a shot!” See a mallard in Missouri, no big deal. See one in North Carolina… now, that’s a memory for a lifetime.

WHOA! Washington ducks! What could be more exotic?

Ducks just confirm for me that the ordinary becomes magical when you travel. Now, if I could just carry that sense of wonder into everyday life at home…

~~~

I love this guy's "Why is my
life so horrible?" expression