Darling Duckies

Today Sarah, Shari, and I headed to the fish hatchery with Savannah the samoyed and Maddy the shih tzu in tow.  It was a beautiful Memorial Day, and even more exciting when I spotted some duck families.  Sometimes I get in this “photography trance” where I ignore everyone around me and start taking pictures.  I took over 100 pictures of…ducks.  Then I rejoined my friends and took pictures of them.  I also took video, but I don’t think YouTube uploads avi movies.  I could be wrong, tell me if I am.

This is the first female mallard and her babies that I encountered.  She was a young mother, who was eventually joined by her mate.  Her ducklings also joined with the other duck family.  It was cute.

One of the little darlings in the green water (lots of algae)…and trout were swimming all around because this is one of the canals at the fish hatchery.

This is the second female mallard with her quad of babies.  It looks like she’s giving them a lecture, doesn’t it?

Here’s a proud papa mallard calling out to his mate in the water with the four ducklings.

Eventually he jumped off the wall and joined the rest of his family.

Maddy was as fascinated wtih the ducks as I was…and they seemed to like her, too.  She walked over, started at them, and walked back to us.  Very cool.

A pretty shot of Shari’s dog, Savannah.

Sitting there watching the ducks while Sarah and Shari walked the dogs was so peaceful.  It was a special moment with my camera, ducks, God, and me.  I could just feel God gently whispering in my ear that this was just for me.  Sure, other people walking by were observing the multitude of baby ducks, and “Oohs” and “Aahs” were uttered.  But they moved on, and I was alone with the animals.  Used to people, they weren’t alarmed by my presence.  Yet they seemed to edge closer to me because I was deemed as no harm.  I feed them some fish food and revelled in the beauty of the day, of nature, and of these lovely birds.  It was a holy moment, and I praised God for