November 28, 2007

It is minus 14 C out there this morning and I don't think I'll see what I saw yesterday along the bike path, as I was out without my camera. I was walking along and I heard this noise. It was a repetitive noise, not very loud and kind of low. Low in pitch and low in where it was coming from. It wasn't mechanical, although it repeated very quickly - sh-sh-sh-sh. I started scanning around to see what might be causing it and that's when I spotted the married pair of Mallards by the side of the path. They were standing in (for them) ankle deep water and they had their necks stretched out with their beaks as parallel to the ground as they could get them. And they were eating the grass under the bit of water. They'd grab the grass and squish it through their beaks and do this so rapidly that it made that noise I heard. They were so absorbed in what they were doing that they didn't even look up at me as I stopped and stood not two feet from them to watch them. And they were still there three hours later when I walked back the other way.