Look Who's Talking!

It was as perfect a June day as I can ever remember: cool in the morning, sunny and warm in the afternoon, just lovely in the shade. I was on campus for a meeting Tuesday afternoon, and I swung by the duck pond for a few minutes afterwards. And what did I find? The place was overrun with ducklings of every size!

Tiny little ducklings! Medium ducklings! Huge ducklings! Fluffy ducklings! Wet ducklings! Ducklings nibbling on green things! Ducklings zipping across the pond! Duckings skittering this way and that! Ducklings bathing, copying their mama! Ducklings napping in the shade!

And on the rock in the middle of the pond, a pair of painted turtles took turns practicing their yoga poses: lean forward, extend rear leg, hold - hold - hold! and release!

I moved quietly around the bushes that line the duck pond, and my careful glance revealed this pair of ducklings trying to take a nap in the dappled shade. Apparently, I disturbed them, as the one on the left lifted its little head and gave me a couple of MEEP-MEEP's!

And so we'll quietly slip away now, leaving these two ducklings to their own devices. Maybe they'll go back to their nap. Or maybe they can talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it . . .

The soundtrack: Lipps Inc, Funkytown.

(In other, unrelated news, the lily pond at the Arboretum is getting some astounding blooms. I took pictures of those too, and the reflections were just lovely. But I'll have to go back and blip those another day because DUCKLINGS WIN THE BLIP! Ducklings always win. They're like tiny terrorists of cute.)