It’s time to buy more frozen corn, as I now have two ducks to feed, and I have to keep them apart. It’s tsouris to help foster ducks! Here are Honey (rear) and Daisy (front) at teatime yesterday afternoon. Note the goldfish clustered around Honey, waiting to eat any bits of corn she misses. Sometimes I have to move away from the turtles and fish who have learned to gather around the ducks, as fish and turtles can’t move to a new feeding location nearly as fast as the ducks. (Honey will follow me anywhere.)
This morning Daisy was gone and I fed Honey in peace; I have no telling whether Daisy has gone for good or will be back.
On the sidewalk nearby, a crawfish (they also live in the pond) makes a threat display, waving its claws menacingly. When I went behind it, the claws were moved backwards. I took a short video, which is below the photo:
It strikes at the camera as I get closer:
Those crayfish really look yummy eh. I do not see how people eat them, no thanks, I’ll take the lobster.
Well! Learn something new every day. I didn’t know that crayfish leave the water and walk around. Why do they do that?
Because they are cray?
Oh, that is funny.
*accccckkkkk* *sputtterr*
Ugh. Great. Now I know what coffee coursing through my nasal passages feels like. Awful.
Oh and you owe me a new keyboard.
It’s easy to pick up grounded crayfish (in Califia “crawdads”)by going behind them and grasping the body right behind the claw arm joints. When I was a kid we just tossed them back into whatever stream/pond we were exploring but many harvested and ate them.
But why do they leave the water? Surely makes them easy pickings for predators?
There are a lot of wildlife niches that pond can fill: ducks, fish, turtles and now crayfish.
Thanks for the new word: tsouris.
…& PCC[E]! He’s pretty wild! 😉
If it’s true that baby ducks can imprint on a human, you may have a friend for life.
I hope your pad has a bathtub, or two.
Birds do imprint. I’d heard it was the first moving living thing that they see, but perhaps living things that they see later and who feed and care for them also become imprinted in the young bird’s mind.
My sister once hatched a little bird egg. She raised that bird in her house. When it was time she took the little bird outside and encouraged him/her to fly away, which he/she did.
You might indeed be becoming a Duck Daddy…
Trans-species love! PCC[E] flapping into the sunset with Daisy! 🙂
In his book ‘An Island to Oneself’, Tom Neale who lived as a hermit on the remote Pacific island of Suvarov for long periods over several years, befriended a wild duck. He slowly tempted it with uto (coconut) and eventually established a pattern where it would arrive every day at the same time to eat grated coconut from his hand. They became great friends.
He believed that the lack of meat and tobacco withdrawal eventually made him view the wild duck with murderous intent. He dreamt of a delicious meal with wild duck on the menu. He could have easily grabbed it and despatched it.
Fortunately he resisted the temptation before it was too late and resolved never to feed it again by hand and broke the routine. The duck refused to eat and he refused to feed it.
Standoff!
The struggle lasted for about a week when the duck flew off and he never saw it again.
So, Honey, beware of undernourished friends.
If you feed a pigeon, you end up with a flock. If you feed a duck, what do you end up with?
…a duck amuk?!
(variant spelling of amok…)