Duck Pond

This was the best! We took some bread down to the neighborhood pond and enjoyed the company of some mallards, some canadian geese with goslings, and a muschovy. The muschovy was a suprising delight. None of us had ever seen one and he was quite the friendly fellow. He seemed bold and approached my son quite closely for some bread. All of these ducks and geese have been a part of the neighborhood pond for years but we'd not had the pleasure of experiencing the goslings or moshovy before. The children sat and did their nature sketches right there at the pond so they'd have a good view of their subjects to sketch.

We were blessed to observe some amazing behaviors. The gander began showing the goslings how to dip and dive under the water. We couldn't see them at all and then suddenly to our delight they would pop up out of the water somewhere else entirely. It was quite amusing and enoyable! The gander then began honking loudly at the goslings and taking short flights out of the pond water. He would then swim back and honk again at the baby goslings. After several of these little eposides we witnessed the goslings stretching out their wings in the water as the gander had. However, the goslings are still covered mostly in down as you'll see in the pictures and have no flight feathers to get them up and out of the water.

I think one of the most adorable things I've ever seen is a proud little gosling walk up the bank onto dry ground and honk and stretch his 'wings' as far as he could with not one feather on them! The children and I really enjoyed this nature study. The wind was warm and slight and it was a beautiful, almost sleepy day. Quite relaxing and enjoyable :)!