It is not known how long the struggle has gone on, but the saga of the brown ducks, white ducks and geese in the park is epic and so bizarrely parable-esque, you might think that I am reading WAY too deeply into nature and its designs or that I am just loony.
When my husband and I first moved here, there was a small population of brown ducks and larger number of white ducks. The white ducks would always harass the brown ducks, chasing them to no end around the pond until they drove the brown ducks out of the water onto the land or til the brown ducks flew off. The only reason I could imagine the white ducks being so territorial was because that was just their nature, or it was a food issue.
After a while, due to unknown reason, but quite possibly due to human intervention involving lots of bread and/or corn being fed to them/we suspect that all the white ducks are male, the brown ducks started making babies. LOTS of the babies, until the brown ducks out numbered the white ducks about 8:1.
The white ducks were getting pretty antsy about this now and couldn't harass the brown ducks too easily there were simply too many of them, not like the brown ducks ever countered back at the white ducks anyway (maybe there was a Gandhi duck).
At some point, it was rumored that one of the white ducks got hit in the head by a rock thrown from a mean spirited kid and went a little "weird" and began to get harassed by the white ducks. Out of fear, the injured white duck began hanging with the brown ones (I'd like to repeat, that I am not making this story up). The white duck specifically would swim with a brown male and female pair and actually took it upon itself to defend the pair when the white ducks got uppity with the brown ducks.
Lately I haven't seen the trio, and most of the brown ducks have flown since winter, but now a flock of big ol' Canadian geese have come to the lake and are acting pretty tough towards the white ducks.
All I've been able to hear in my head when I see the 2 groups square off is the "Jet's Song" from West Side Story.
I also have been thinking that I ought to take this tale mainstream and write a children's storybook.
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