Duck Love

Pretty hard to get a photo from the road, but see the white duck there
on the other side of the river? Brown duck is right beside it to the right
his pale bill is barely discernible.

Two weeks ago as I drove home from a day on the Northside of Indianapolis, I took the long way, as I usually do, so I could drive along the river. Not long after my turn onto the river road, I saw something white swimming in the river upstream from the falls.  A huge white duck. It acted fidgety, swimming this way then that.

Peculiar, I thought.

The next evening Bill came out to have an after work kayak.  As we’re paddling along – still downstream from the falls, I caught movement on the river bank in my peripheral vision. It was a hefty brown duck.

It walked to the bank’s edge and quacked at us.  I quacked back. “Wack, wack,” it said. “Wack, wack,” I said. It jumped into the river. And swam right up to my kayak.  I was super impressed with my duck wack, wacking skills. Bill said that the duck must be tame. No wild duck would do that. 

Peculiar, I thought.

It was a fine specimen of a large brown duck with teal on the wing. It looked like a female mallard, but had curly tail feathers, which I have always thought indicated a drake. Hard to sex a duck from a kayak.

Anyway, that duck swam along with us, and as we sped up to navigate the now-shallow rapids, it sped up, swimming as fast as its duck feet could paddle. 

We got out at the rapids to pull our kayaks where the river was too shallow, splashing over this spot where there are boulders on the river bottom. The duck splashed over, too.  Splat, splat on the watery rocks, navigating by foot as we did. Right beside us. I could have reached down and patted his little duck head he was that close.

Very peculiar.

Back in the kayaks for the short paddle up to the falls. Duck bringing up the rear still.  At the falls, we portaged the kayaks to wade around on the exposed rocks of the flat limestone river bed. Splashing over the rocks with the duck splat splatting along beside us.

Then I remembered something. In addition to seeing that huge white duck the night before, I had seen a spot near the falls where someone had dumped out birdseed, and where there were a lot of feathers.

Hm. Light bulb.

I looked up river and there it was, the white duck, still in the very same spot where I’d noticed it the evening before. I told Bill that I thought he was right. Clearly my brown duck was imprinted on humans and he thought I was his human. I wondered to Bill, do you think someone might have let these two ducks loose here where the birdseed and the feathers are and they got separated somehow? Maybe they know each other. Hm.

So, we started wading toward the white duck. Splat, splat on the rocks came the brown duck. Bill asked, “How far are you going?”  Me: “just far enough for them to see each other and see if they recognize each other.”  Bill: “Ok.”

We waded and waded a bit more. We were getting closer to the white duck but my brown duck hadn’t seen it yet.

Then, one of them quacked. “Wack, wack.” Then the other “wack, wack.”  Wack, wack. Wack, wack, wack, wack!  And my brown duck set off swimming to that white duck like he was shot out of a water cannon.  And that white duck awkwardly waddled at high speed to the end of his log and fell into the water and set off swimming to the brown duck.  

Swim, swim, swim, swim ducks.

And then they met. And then they MET.  Brown duck was much faster than white duck so they were pretty far upriver when it happened, but we could see the duck recognition, duck relief, duck “oh my god, I didn’t know where you went! I’ve found you!” 

Duck love. As they swam around and around each other.

Bill and I waded back to our kayaks, looking back every few seconds to watch the ducks paddle and circle with each other in the river.

When I got home, I googled “what do ducks eat,” wondering if I should drop off some sort of food to them until they acclimated to the environment. The sites I found said ducks are omnivores. They’ll eat anything—and there are plenty of anythings in the Flatrock River for them: minnows, weeds, algae, bugs.  It will be a good diet.

Every day since that day I have driven past or walked up the road to check on my ducks.  They’re still there.  Never more than a foot from each other. At first they stayed very near white duck’s log. But now they swim more freely. I’ve seen them checking out some of the inlets. I’ve seen them on the other side of the river, and up and downstream from their log. I think they have good duck lives. Together.

I don't know if they are a male and a female couple, or two ducks of the same sex who are duck friends, but I know they've found each other again. And I know I have seen duck love.

Today, they are at the falls. An odd duck couple. Still together.