WordSisters

Tag: wildlife

  • The Ducks Will Return Without Us

    The Ducks Will Return Without Us

    Every spring, the shout goes up.

    “Ducks are back!”

    For thirty years, this has been a constant. Snowmelt pooled on the pool cover before spring fully arrived, and the mallards landing there every season, trusting this small temporary pond the way we trusted the house.

    It could be startling, sitting quietly on the deck, reading or meditating. Then the silence would break: quacking, the whuff-whuff-whuff of cupped wings slowing descent, ducks materializing out of the sky in a downward swoop. Sharp orange feet skittering across the wet cover — slap, slap, slap, scrrrch. Splashing and rippling. Finally, the settling sounds: little shakes, bills dipping into water, softer quacks, even a low gurgle from the mother duck.

    Most often it was a pair, though this year we’ve seen as many as four drakes in the pool with no hens in sight. Lately it’s been just one drake returning, again and again, during the day and evening.

    I wonder if he, too, feels the pull of change.

    This year, their return feels especially poignant because it is our last spring here. Our house has sold. All the rooms are empty except Crystel’s. Last in, last out, I tease her. She’ll dawdle with the ducks as long as she can until it’s time for both of them to move on.

    With the cover peeled back, open for swimming, the ducks still come. Gliding across the open water, bathing, napping, resting. There will be an ending or a moving forward for us. A final day. A final jump in the pool.

    Our house has a heartbeat. It is not just wood, walls, windows, and yard. Its heartbeat has been the four of us. Jody and I brought Juan and Crystel here when they were babies. We built a nest. We raised them. They pulled themselves up. Took their first steps. For twenty-four years, this house held us through changes, noise, laughter, growing up, letting go.

    The house has been saying goodbye to us, too. The lilacs bloomed their fragrant light purple. The flowering crabapple tree burst open in dark pink blooms. White blossoms on the back apple tree were in full regale during the open house. Peonies bloomed in time, as if giving us one last gift.

    Juan and Aryanna

    I am writing this under the shade of the apple tree in the backyard. I hear the schoolchildren next door, the birds singing, the quiet drift of clouds overhead. So much is the same, even as everything is changing.

    In a few days, we will close the door on making more memories here. But this is not really goodbye. The house will go on. It was alive when we came, and we have been good stewards. We filled it with love, with children, dogs and cats, hamsters, fish, and an indoor playground. Many projects were completed. Many dreams realized.

    What I will miss most is not the house, the landscaped yard, or even the pool. I will miss the four people we were here: Jody, Juan, Crystel, and me. We were the pulse. The collective heartbeat.

    The house will look different in thirty years. New voices will fill it. A different timbre will shout, “The ducks are back!” But the ducks will keep returning. The lilacs will bloom. The trees will flower. The house will keep beating.

    And so will we.

    Like the ducks we will shift to the next stage the season asks of us. We will circle back to each other, returning again and again.

    Crystel's final jump
    Crystel’s final jump!

  • Let’s Talk Turkey

    Spending last week with a ten-year-old and a three-year-old, daytime conversations focused on important topics like glitter glue, building Lego structures with or without directions, how many cookies equal too many, and the dangerous wild turkeys wandering nearby.

    One night we strapped on headlamps to walk in the meadow, away from houses, turned off the lights to look at a sky ablaze with stars. The granddaughters, bright eyes plastered upward, were thrilled until remembering it was December and cold.

    Star gazing in the meadow is the kind of memory shared in social media posts, but we talked about the wild turkeys longer. Burning off energy with the younger child, her father saw many turkeys roosting in trees along our driveway. Since a neighbor told me that the turkey brood pecking through our neighborhood slept in our trees at night, I had been reading about them. Mostly about self-protection. Our smallish dog has been rushed more than once by a mom turkey protecting her poult. When he made it to the house before me, she turned attention my way. Nothing stopped her approach. We’ve been captive in our house as turkeys peck through the garden.

    Mom turkeys can sit on their eggs for a month and have not one hatch. About 20% of eggs will hatch with only 25% of those surviving their first months. Clearly not cute, poults, or baby turkeys if you prefer, are fragile and a snack for many predators. Turkey poults require loafing and roosting sites. Got to like a youngster that requires loafing territory, or fancy word for shelter, during their food search. 

    Turkeys spend their day on ground pecking for edibles and their nights roosting in trees. Our garden and grassy areas provide easy shopping for mom turkeys. We are annoyances in their family protection effort. Woodlands provide some shelter while the poults are too young to fly up to the roosting zone.

    Thanks to tended gardens, grass and woods, our local turkey population expands. Mom and the recent four poults joined a multi-generational wintering flock of about two dozen spending each night. They prefer multi-story stands with mature trees. I’ve read that up to a hundred turkeys might roost near each other. 

    This potential does not thrill me. Even our current community leave enough excrement on the driveway or in easement near the trees. As a popular toddler book says, everybody poops. In the human neighborhood, poop is not cute. The turkeys don’t care.