Sunday morning for the first time since we’ve lived here, I noticed a pair of northern shoveler ducks in the pond behind our house. I had to look them up in my bird book to identify them. This morning when I woke up there were a dozen northern shovelers in the pond. Seeing them filled me with wonder and joy.
Ducks and Wonder
As I watched them feed I wondered if the pair I saw on Sunday were the scouts, checking out a likely place to rest and feed on their journey south. And I wondered why they chose our pond this year when I had never seen this breed of ducks on the pond before. What are they eating I wondered? And do they always feed in a sort of dance of circle and dip, circle and dip? There seems to be a lone duck who is not circling and dipping. What’s with him?
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― Auguries of Innocence
Morning entertainment
I watched them from the time I woke up until finally at a little before 10 AM all of them flew off, except for a single pair (the pair that was here on Sunday?). Standing at the window with my 100-400 mm lens on my camera with a 1.4 extender, I waited and waited for them to move away from the tree that was between me and them. Just as the single pair had circled and dipped for long periods of time, this larger group of shovelers circled, swirled and dipped usually in a tight circle on the pond.
Hand-holding the camera with such a long lens is tiring and before I was done my arms were shaking—not a recipe for sharp clear images.
Nevertheless I persisted and made photographs through the tree branches when all else failed. And when they finally winged into the air together I wished them well on their journey south.
“Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.”
― A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Wonder-filled eyes
You could say that I am easily entertained, but I like to think that I look at the world through eyes of wonder. They are just ducks you might say, not that different from the mallards you see all the time.
But take a look at their large spoon-shaped bills. According to Wikipedia, “their wide-flat bill is equipped with well-developed lamellae – small, comb-like structures on the edge of the bill that act like sieves, allowing the birds to skim crustaceans and plankton from the water’s surface.” And the way that they feed by simply dipping their heads under water while swirling in circles over and over and over again is mesmerizing.
I give thanks regularly for the pond behind our house and the wildlife that it brings into my life. My days are filled with wonder and beauty in all seasons.
“Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.”
―
What brings you wonder today?
May you walk in beauty.
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