Flamingo Friday: The Plunge

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The continuity of ducks and the uncanniness of chickens

"Twenty-three years ago I fed these identical ducks with these identical sandwiches [...] How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks."
          —Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night

This past weekend was absurdly pleasant and spring-like, even for the DC area. Earnestine and I did our best to take advantage of it with long walks on which we admired blossoming snow-drops and crocuses (me) and sniffed every single patch of monkey-grass exposed by the melted snow (her).

On Sunday morning we took a walk around the neighborhood and hesitated near an entrance to the creek path, considering whether or not to loop home through the park.

As we paused, a noise that I have never heard before—and hope never to hear again—came rising up from somewhere behind the houses across the street. It was not quite braying, not quite moaning: an ascending, wavering cry that echoed out again and again over the landscape.

Earnestine and I exchanged startled looks. Was it the howl of a maddened were-goat? The cry of a ghost donkey? My best guess—having once seen suburban hens in another yard in this area—was that it was the mutant crowing of some kind of chicken, possibly one possessed by a demon.

We didn’t stay to speculate or explore. As one, we turned and trotted back the way we came, leaving the creek path—and its fell, fowl guardians—alone.

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Flamingo Friday: Snowbirds

For all of you in the Midwest.

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Missing summer

I was lucky enough to receive a monarch caterpillar in a wildflower bouquet friends bought at the farmers' market this past August. I hope that in posting this photo of it I might conjure forth those summer months a little sooner...

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Flamingo Friday: Flustered with Love

Flamingo courtship is a frantic time...

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Lump Day Once Again

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Flamingo Friday: Animals (Still) Don't Pose

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