Duck parade

Every morning, there's a duck parade, and I'm usually up early enough to see it. No, this isn't the Peabody Hotel with trained ducks and a wrangler to lead them.

And it isn't Disney World. Although some visitors seem to think it is. One person suggested to me earlier this summer that we should build a large parking garage at the mainland ferry docks, requiring people to park there and walk or bike throughout the village. When I told her there was an effort underway to establish a tram service which would run throughout the village, she said "Oh, that would be even better...like Disney World!" When I replied that, of course, Ocracoke is NOT Disney World, she looked at me blankly and I had to go on to clarify "real people actually live and work here". But I digress. I was telling you about the duck parade.

There is a large group of mallards who spend most of their time in an open area, which is usually damp and has a veritable miniature lake in it after a rain, next to a house around the corner from where I live. Each day, they walk together (not exactly in a line, but more or less) down the street, around the curve of Loop Rd, across Lighthouse Rd, through a couple of backyards and to a soundside beach. Once they get there, they are out of my line of vision, so I'm not 100% sure what they do, but I have seen mallards swimming and playing in the sound on other occassions, so I'm betting that's the purpose of their journey. After a while, they walk back (in their ragged, not-exactly-a-straight-line way) to their neighborhood, and their pond. (Sometimes a few of them stop by to eat some of the food I put out for my outside cats.)

I enjoy watching them, and probably should take a lesson from their consistency. There's something to be said for doing the same thing every day, especially when that thing is playing in salt water. :)