Many years ago the Homeowner’s Association decided that we needed more ducks on Teal and Lost Land. We were among those who volunteered to raise twenty-four ducklings. We anxiously waited until our 24 newborn ducklings were delivered from Sears Roebuck via UPS. Yes, Sears sold them! We followed the instructions: build a box house, place it on the lake shore, and attached a chicken-wire enclosure into the water. Our little orphans would waddle down from their house to swim around in their secure wire pen.
Now, the natural ducks on the lake swam by, following their mother, in single file. They completely ignored our ducks in the enclosure. “Oh, the natural ducks will never have anything to do with those “store bought ducks” the neighbors and friends informed us. They will ostracize and never mix with those motherless orphans!”
One day our neighbor, Tony Philips noticed that one of our little penned ducklings was squawking at a passing group of natural ducks. The mother seemed to stop to squawk at our noisy guy, as her babies broke ranks and gathered around the pen. They looked exactly like our little penned ducks. As we approached, the mother quickly paddled off, leading her offspring in single file. Our little guy quacked excitedly! So Tony picked up
the baby duck and placed it in the water outside the pen. It quickly paddled out and joined behind the single file, and off it went with the family of natural ducks.
We were amazed. Imagine that. “ It happened! Our baby duck went off and joined a family of natural ducks,” we told everyone at all the bars. NO ONE believed us. We insisted and retold the story until most finally conceded that “nature” is indeed suprising. We smugly felt that we had observed an anomaly of nature--a rare occurrence of unnatural behavior.
After a few days, Tony and I were feeding the ducks and inspecting the pen. “I just counted the ducks,” Tony said, “ would you count them?” I counted the little, brown feathery guys as they swam about. “One, two, three -------twenty four. Wait,” I said, “we should have only 23, let’s count them again.” Sure enough there were twenty-four. All our ducks were still there. Tony and I just stood and looked at each other. “ That little guy we released was that mother’s baby who somehow got into our pen!” Tony said. “Hey, I said,” let’s not mention this around town, OK?” Tony was just nodding his head.
