Duck! Really…duck!

The weather this morning was wet and foul — a proverbial “nice…if you’re a duck” sort of morning. It was “fowl” enough, in fact, that I finally had an opportunity — my first time ever in Fairview — to quiz a real, honest-to-goodness, duck on its proclivities towards precipitation.

Her Most Serene Duckness

With feet like those — what are they, size 11? — it’s hard to believe Mallards are so tippy.

This female Mallard was dabbling in the south-side alley of the 1300 block of West Broadway (Mallards are so-called “dabbling ducks,” they’ll try anything once).

She wasn’t injured and at one point she flew out of the way of a car but she definitely seemed a bit confused. She looked the way visitors to Fairview look when they’ve forgotten where they parked, or like she didn’t know where she was.

Fairview is not typical duck habitat. Perhaps that will change now there’s a Wild Birds Unlimited store located just a few blocks east on West Broadway.

Whatever she was doing in the neighbourhood she definitely wasn’t in a mood to tell me how she really felt about the rain.

By all appearances though she thought it was ducky. She really did appear to take it in her web-footed stride. The rain just ran off her back like…water…off…a… Never mind. Click the images to enlarge them.

Ducks really do waggle their butts every so often and “shake a tail feather.”