Quack Quack....

Judging by the lack of gunfire the last couple of mornings, I would say that the ducks are well ahead on points so far this season. The weather has been absolutely beautiful so far. Okay, so we had a bit of rain later on Saturday morning that produced a frenzied bout of shooting from the river, but all in all, I think the ducks are well ahead on points so far, which pleases me. Yes, I've heard the arguments that they need to be culled at least once a year, but I still prefer to see parents with their children feeding them at the little reserve just along the road from home. They don't taste that good anyway. The ducks that is, not the children.

When we lived down the coast at Waiomu, we used to have an old Mama Duck that used to bring her clutch of ducklings over the road from the camping ground every year to meet us. She would sit back a bit & let us feed her babies with bread soaked in water which they would eat from your hand. I only ever succumbed to temptation once & picked one up. The mothers distress was considerable & culminated in her beating my legs with her wings & doing her very best to peck me with her somewhat blunt beak. I put the little one down very carefully & gave Mum a nice bit of bread to soothe her ruffled feathers.

Yes, I like ducks. They always remind me of the words that my Mother put in my autograph book. (Remember those?) They were quite the craze for a while when I was at school. I guess facebook & twitter & co., have supplanted them somewhat. I don't know what happened to my autograph book. I rather suspect that it submerged somewhere along the line in the detritus of a life marked by countless moves & a marriage breakup. I had the odd good signature in it too. Anyway, what my Mum wrote in it was this... "Jamie, always behave like the duck. Keep calm & unruffled on the surface, but paddle really hard underneath."