Nature

The Ducks are Back

Every spring, the migrating mallard ducks return to splash around in our pool and wander through the garden

Spring, for the Burkhalter house, arrives with the splash of ducks landing in our pool. Every year, the mallards migrate to Southern California. And every year, they check out the local pool situation, looking for a place to set up house for a bit.

They are not subtle, and they have no fear of the kitties, who are always quite curious about them.

The boys have gorgeous iridescent-green heads. The hens are more brown but they both have a blue and white stripe along their sides. The oldest-known mallard duck lived to be twenty-seven years old.

These days, we have a new pair of love-ducks. But for several years, we had one particular duck — we called him Mr. Duck — who had a most unusual friendship with our kitty, Leo. Both Leo and Mr. Duck are gone now, but their peculiar bond amazed me. Mr. Duck would, literally, peck at the French door to tell Leo he was there and that he wanted him to “come out and play.”

This is Leo, Naranca, and Mr. and Mrs. Duck.

One year, I came home from teaching a yoga class to find a pool full of baby ducklings.

This year’s ducks may be the pair that were here last year. They mate for life and when they are pairing up, the competition between the males can be fierce. Those years we’ll often have two or more males in the pool with the female, vying for her attention and bickering amongst each other. But, so far anyways, we just have this pair.

Here is Mrs. Duck coming in for a landing.

And they often stand on the side of the pool, quacking to each other and preening.

I just thought that Mrs. Duck looked so regal atop my statue of an Indian apsara (a heavenly yogini). She looks like a real-life version of one of the many creatures surrounding the woman-in-stone. She blends right in with the monkeys, peacocks, lizards and the cow.

The ducks are highly entertaining to watch. The kitties just love them. I feel like spring has officially arrived now.

Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).

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Photos and story ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.