A Visitor to the Lily Pond

I saw them there for the first time last week: a pair of mallard ducks, on the lily pond at the Arboretum. The female is various shades of brown; the male has a bright green head. They made a handsome couple. I made note of it, wondered how long they might stay.

Quite fortuitously, the Arboretum is right beside the parking lot where I park when I have meetings on campus. So I get to walk through the gardens frequently; sometimes, several days per week. When I went by the lily pond late in the morning of this day, I saw the lady mallard again, but not the male (perhaps he was off foraging somewhere nearby; I hope so).

And I was surprised at how friendly she was! She swam right over to me as though I were a long lost friend. When I crouched by the lily pond, trying to get some of those reflection shots that I love, she sat quietly by my side, not even a foot away from me.

I wanted some shots of the lily pond with her in them, but it's harder than you might think to get a decent shot of a duck that's hovering mere inches from your camera. She swam in place, glided rather, floated . . . I could have reached out a hand and touched her. But on principle, I respect the wildness of wild creatures, and I do not ever try to touch or pet them. At best, it's a violation of personal space. At worst, you can get yourself nipped that way.

And then at last, she began to move around the pond. It is silly of me to admit it, but I took more than a hundred photos with her in them. I just liked the way she looked there. Her little "smile" seemed to make the place even more lovely.

But finally, I had to go on my merry way. And as I started walking away, she gave me one last look over her shoulder. (Do ducks even have shoulders?) It seemed to be a look of sorrow, of regret, and I felt it too. "Do you really have to go?" Yes, alas, I did. But I'll be back again, one day soon . . .

Now, I'm not sure how easy it is to see it in this photo, but the female mallard's eyes are a lovely deep brown. And so the song to accompany this picture of this friendly, smiling duck is Van Morrison's Brown-Eyed Girl.