Monday, February 27, 2012

nature versus nurture

Today while out on a golf cart constitutional i had two very different experiences with some birds.
As i started out i noticed a large white bird by the water's edge.

It was too big and bulky to be a heron, plus it had a grey head - i had no idea what it might be, a crane of some sort mayhaps - so i got closer to investigate.
He didn't fly away, but he was unamused.
 Can you see the hairy eyeball he's giving me?
Click on the image and look at that glare: he is deciding whether to shriek a warning or just flat out go for my tasty, tasty eyes.

Needless to say, as soon as the picture snapped i backed away slowly.

A bit later i was tooling around by the other lake looking for alligators and noticed a duck swimming out in the water. In the land of cranes and herons and ibis, a duck kinda sticks out, especially cause it was of the notoriously ugly Muscovy variety (sorry Rea).
After thinking Look, it's one of Rea's ugly ducks; that's odd I went back to searching the shoreline for gator tracks. About 10 seconds later i saw movement from the corner of my eye:

Whoa! How did you get here so fast?
Duck dude saw me, swam to shore and waddled right up to the golf cart looking for treats. No fear at all. I explained that i did not have any duck treats; he just looked at me and shook his tail feathers. I mean he made such a rapid beeline to the golf cart that he was still dripping water. I went about my gator hunting business and he just hung by me unable to accept that i could possibly be at the lake without treats.
I think you can tell which bird must live here and which one was just passing through.

1 comment:

Douglas said...

Explaining things to a duck...snort, snort, snortle 8)