Feeding the Ducks

   Last week, while my daughter, Camille, and her oldest daughter, Justine were visiting, I recalled that there was a little park down on Lake Lucille that was populated with quite a number of wild Mallards and a few Grebes. I guess they're wild, although by the look of these pictures, I suppose they could be considered domesticated.  They certainly come running whenever anyone comes to the park and gets close to the water.

Since we didn't have any stale bread we wanted to get rid of, I took several tubes of saltine crackers to feed them, along with some black sunflower seeds. Needless to say, they made short work of the food we brought them. Justine laughed with delight and of course tried to get them to eat out of her hand, which they didn't want any part of.

Like most things we enjoy doing, once wasn't enough, so we made a second trip to the park to engage the feathered gluttons. This time I didn't bring saltines, I don't want them to end up with high blood pressure or anything, but I did bring more sunflower seeds, as well as some thistle seeds that the wild birds didn't want anything to do with. I also brought along my youngest daughter Autumn, who enjoys life to the fullest and is just a lot of fun to have around. She spent quite a bit of time making sure Camille and Justine had an enjoyable and memorable time here.  Hopefully thistles won't be growing all over the park lawn as a reminder of their visit. No doubt I would be cursed soundly by the lawn maintenance crews.

Most of the ducks pictured here were juveniles. They still had their mothers with them protecting them and making sure no other ducks or seagulls infringed on their food. Several times I witnessed the mother ducks charging after the ducklings from the other broods. I guess if I was busy eating crackers and and there were only so many to go around, I too might get really agitated. I don't know if I would attack my neighbors, but I might. For now I'll just make sure I have an ample supply of saltines and Ritz so my temper can stay in place.