One morning several
weeks ago I was enjoying the company of the ducks at the local pond
when some people showed up and
started throwing bread to the waterfowl. Within minutes, a very
strange-looking duck paddled up to where the people were throwing bread:
(click to zoom)
(click to zoom)
The people tried
throwing bread to the newcomer, but for some reason he just wouldn’t
eat it. Instead, he just paddled around with the other ducks,
occasionally jabbing irrascibly at them with his formidable beak, which
was rather longer
than the other ducks’, and also very pointy.
(Impressively pointy, in fact).
After a while,
I noticed that the bits of bread that
the people had thrown to this strange fowl
were being eaten instead by a swarm of large catfish that had risen to
the surface to nibble at the
floating morsels:
(click to zoom)
The strange duck obviously noticed this too,
for his attention was riveted on the frothing mass. Suddenly, he
struck out with his beak and quickly snatched one of the fish
from the
water:
(click to zoom)
After waiting as the fish wiggled
helplessly in his beak for a moment, the bird took to flight, in the
process revealing a pair of enormously long legs—or, as Yogi Bear might
say, legs “longer than on the average
duck”:
(click to zoom)
I followed this curious creature
around to the other
side of the pond, where he rested high
on the bank for quite some time, showing off his impressive catch to
any
interested party who happened to pass by:
(click to zoom)
Once he was fully satisfied
that he had earned the deepest admiration of all the visitors to the
park that afternoon, he
descended in a leisurely manner to the very edge of the water, where he
set the fish down in the
shallows and proceeded to treat his fellow vertebrate in a most unkind
(and certainly ungentlemanlike) manner,
repeatedly spearing the animal with that formidable weapon which was
attached to
his face:
(click to zoom)
This went on for
quite some time, till the fish appeared quite lifeless. Then the
bird took the rather enormous carcass in his mouth and with some little
effort swallowed it
whole (!):
(click to zoom)
His belly quite full, he then
retired to a comfortable perch to digest his meal in peace:
(click to zoom)
In the intervening weeks since the
above observations, I have since seen this “strange duck” catch
numerous piscine specimens, very often using the same strategy of
waiting for his
prey to venture to the surface to feed on pieces of bread thrown for
the
other ducks. Here he is downing yet another species of fish:
(click to zoom)
I'm not sure how the
other ducks feel about their aberrant fellow, and I’m not sure he
really cares. I suspect, however, that the local fish are rather
less ambiguous in their feelings toward the carnivorous “duck” in their
midst...
Some More Photos of the
“Strange Duck”
*
The obligatory disclaimers: (1) Yes, this story is intended to be
facetious, (2) yes,
I
know it’s a GBH
(Ardea herodias), and
(3) yes, these photos were taken at different
times and in different places (and of potentially different
individuals), and were
artificially cobbled together to illustrate key points in the
story.
|
