Ducks!

Barley, a dog, trots along contentedly in some moist grass, and does not appear to have noticed a pair of ducks (one male, one female) sitting in the grass on the opposite side of the path.

There’s a ring of earth near my office that, whenever we get heavy rain for a couple days in a row, gradually fills to become a small, brackish pool about the size of a picnic blanket. A couple times a year, for the last three or four years, a pair of mallards will show up and hang out by the pool until it dries out. I have no idea if it’s the same ducks every year, perhaps stopping through as part of a migratory journey, but this pond fills in quite irregularly, so it seems like it would be a fantastic coincidence for them to always pass through at just the right time. Mallards also don’t generally form pair bonds that are stable over multiple breeding seasons, so it’s very possible that it’s been a different pair of ducks every time, and that this is simply a “nice spot for at most two ducks.”

In any case, I try to steer Barley well clear of these visitors (photo ops notwithstanding) so she doesn’t scare them off. Fortunately, she’s not especially excited by birds, so even if she notices them at a distance, she’s pretty indifferent to their presence.