The Return of the Duck

I’ve been busy. I work full time, I’m a mom, wife, daughter and sister. I practice my archery skills at our local range, I go on power walks rain or shine, I’m an amateur photographer and I knit. I live in a place where I am fortunate to have the freedom and the means to do what I want, when I want. I live in a beautiful part of the world where the wonders of nature never cease to amaze me. I truly don’t take what Mother Nature has given me for granted and I know our weather is what draws many to live here. On the West Coast of British Columbia, specifically Vancouver Island, we live in what is considered a tropical rainforest.

Yes, rainforest. The word alone sounds so....remote and tropical. So ‘Amazon’ – the place, not the online never-ending shopping experience. True we don’t have monkeys swinging from vines, and we don’t have snakes, lizards and creatures more colourful and fascinating than anything a west coast girl like me could ever imagine. Sure we have flowers, but nothing big and grand like what you would find deep in the Amazonian jungle. Our flowers have their own beauty and uniqueness – size doesn’t matter. And sure we have birds not found anywhere else – every country has their own unique animals, after all. Parrots and other birds with colours beyond imagine are kept in cages here – in the jungles afar they fly free by the dozens.

And now that summer is over and fall is upon us, the rains have started. But up until this point, we haven’t had a lot of rain. In fact, even a week ago I was outside in a t-shirt at the archery range, and I was wishing I had on shorts. Some of the local ponds had yet to fill, and we knew that it wouldn’t be long until they DID fill with water to overflowing, bringing joy and home to many local creatures.

Ducks.

Mallard ducks.

The females are brown and considered ‘boring’ while the males are in dark blues and greens - again, seemingly boring – or so as compared to those vibrantly coloured parrots and flowers in the jungles far away.

But they are OUR tropical birds we so greatly love. The rains that come for what feels like 40 days and 40 nights bring the ducks in rafts. Yes, a group of ducks paddling around in a pond is called a raft, where when in flight the group is called a flock.

But no rafts are needed for these guys. Their little webbed feet keep them going. They mate for life, and support each other. They return every year to the same place to nest and breed, and the spring heralds fuzzy little chicks that we humans happily protect. A busy highway will come to a standstill to let a little family cross, and firemen and police will go to great lengths to save a little waddler trapped down a drain. People flock to the ponds armed with duck food (bread is bad, dontcha know!) and cameras click faster than the ducks can eat.

And I’m one of them.

I will never tire of the little beings of our own rainforest. They quack, waddle, flap and paddle all day – sometimes I feel as if only for my entertainment and enjoyment. Like I said, I've been busy - I always AM busy - but these guys force me to slow down and take a moment to just be. I never tire of them, and I have countless photos of them. Some might think of the ducks ‘Heck – you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, right?’ Na – not for me. I love the little guys – and gals.
So as the heavy autumn rains have finally come back to us – non-stop for the last 24 hours as I write this – I know it means one thing. Ducks. The pond at the nature conservatory near my house has been rather dry these last months. I saw a poor excuse of a muddy puddle that had formed there the other day with two ducks mucking about. Were they desperate to make it more than it really was or happy with what they had? I think the later. Because they didn’t care – they still mucked about, happy with what they had.

As the forecast calls for more and more rain over the next while – and the forecasters sure weren’t wrong this time – all I can think about is ‘FINALLY, the ducks will be back for a good while!’ I am currently charging my camera batteries so my camera is ready for the next break in the clouds. I have spent countless hours at the pond taking photo after photo of our rainforest birds. To anyone else it’s ‘just another duck photo.’ To me, the photos are a treasure – a keepsake – a reminder of what to remember. The ducks are a never-ending source of joy and entertainment. They are MY parrots of MY rainforest.

They remind me to find and keep the joy in the little things, no matter how small - how seemingly insignificant. Sure the ducks aren’t grand parrots of colour and variety aplenty. And sure around here the ducks are a dime a dozen. But I can lie in bed listening to the rain, and hear the ducks at the pond down the street singing their swan song (that likely doesn’t make sense, but I don’t care) and know how lucky I am to have these little creatures within arm’s reach to entertain me. I don’t have to travel to jungles afar to enjoy these unique and special little creatures who waddle down the path making me laugh.

And I remember that a silly little mud puddle to one person means the world to another. We are all just ducks in this great big pond. We have to keep swimming, we have to keep waddling, and eventually we’ll get there simply by being ourselves and enjoying what we have.

Quack!

The Thing About Spring...

We made it – we survived another winter. Spring is here on the West Coast and I’m loving it. It was just what the doctor ordered to pick up my spirits after a dark winter.

I’m specific about what seasons I like. Hot and dry summers are not my thing, and even though I’m lucky because the winters here are mild – salt and ice scrapers only sometimes make an appearance – everything gets so colourless and blah. I’m more of an autumn person – the cool, crisp afternoons where the sun skitters through rust-coloured burnished leaves is my favorite time of year. In a close second to autumn comes spring – a zillion colours are around every corner, and there’s a sense of excitement and anticipation in the air, in everyone; we are leaving dark, drab winter days behind.

Spring is a time of beginnings and birth. Everywhere you turn something is growing, blossoming, and regenerating. Lambs run amuck through their fields, mallard ducklings start to waddle across busy streets, and cherry blossoms pose for countless cameras. It’s a time of starting – kind of like starting fresh.

But this year I’m looking at spring as a time for ME to re-start and re-set myself. With it being only just three months into the new year, I figured it’s a perfect time to look back and review the goals and resolutions I made on December 31st . Have I veered off a course I tried to set for myself? Have I achieved anything so far? Or had I simply forgotten what I had intended on doing this year, and allowed external factors to deter my plans? I’m not putting pressure on myself – too high standards and too much pressure can only lead to disaster. But it’s easy to forget about those little goals set at the new year when the novelty of resolutions wears off.

And I know because I’ve done it.

So I’m checking-in with myself and if needed, starting anew. Again, no pressure – but I’m taking the time to re-visit and re-assess what I’ve done or tried to do this year, and maybe start again. Heck, we were fortunate to have a leap day this year (happens only every four years, you know), so it’s an added bonus! It’s an extra day this year for us to accomplish the great things we can all do if we set our minds to it.

We started fresh and new on January 1st, but life is life and we all get busy and forget about these great things we said we were going to TRY to do this year. It’s never too late to start something new – to change. But for some of us who had vowed at the new year to do this and that as well as BE this and that, sometimes we need to sit back part way through the year and see where we’re at. And why not do it in spring, the ¼ mark of the year, when everything is blossoming, blooming, and starting new?

The first day of spring this year was on Sunday March 20th and even though it rained a bit, that didn’t dampen anyone’s springy spirits. On that rainy day I pulled out the list of goals – or ‘intentions’ as I am calling them – I had written out in the new year. And I was pleased with myself. Some things I had actually been unconsciously doing all along (that’s what writing them out does – cements them in your head), and some things I had forgotten about. Seeing those ‘intentions’ – both accomplished and newly ‘remembered’– was just the kick-start I needed. The year is young, all is not lost, and there’s plenty of time to accomplish what I set out to do. Sure I hadn't started a few things yet – and that’s okay. This is what spring is for; a second chance to start fresh. Slowly but surely I'll get there.

So while many bulbs are just starting to poke their way up and out of the dirt – the same bulbs that were in the ground last year and are now taking another chance at another fabulous year of colour and beauty – I too will also be starting anew and taking another chance at doing what I set out to do: to have a fabulous, colourful, beautiful year, and no matter what the season.