As apparent as their variety, is the an undeniable connection with this group and mankind, a connection which goes beyond the musing at feathered friends at feeders, or the dazzling delight of hummingbirds, or poetic songs of thrushes and wrens.

Waterfowl or wildfowl, perhaps take us back to our ancestral roots, to a time of hunters and gatherers. Large and strong by comparison to perching birds of woodland and lawn, the impressive ducks and geese, are exuberant pursuing fish in frigid surf, or grazing ice covered fields and corn stubble. Some fly Vs at airline altitudes during migration. Others pump bye audibly at highways speeds across the marshlands, and for millennia all have been the subject of great interest by people from tips of the southern continents to Alaska, and beyond. There’s an excitement in ducks on the wing, against the cold blues and grays of autumn sky. An excitement in hearing the geese approach from afar, in knowing that at some point, a point back in our history, a point and moment in which they would be close enough to eat. Wild creatures so emblematic of the great outdoors, wild, free, and wary of man, able to stay just out of reach.

There is also the great joy that the very young and young at heart derive from watching goslings following parents, and from feeding ducks, geese and swans up close. My 14 month old gets very upset, when we must leave the scene of the local barnyard geese. The domesticated duck up close is disarming and inviting, their rapid movements and nervous energy, belying their connection with, and ability to survive in a world of challenges and extremes.

Our ducks, geese, and magnificent swans are beautiful flying machines They are agile and powerful, when tame curious and comical. Imagine, being a Canvasback and cruising at 70mph, splashing down on the lake surface, and then, without thought, diving into the blue. All without any more concern than that of water off a duck’s back.

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