Wit, wit, wit

It was a hot afternoon. Too hot. Too hot to be walking in the sunshine, too hot to want to eat. So said the mallards at Reifel Island. They sat in the dust, inert, ignoring me and my bag of goodies. Too hot to move.

I went to look, instead, at the carp in the pool, and one mallard roused herself enough to join me on the fence.

"Hi!"

"You know, I think I could manage to eat a crumb or two."

I gave her a handful of seeds and she nibbled them gently out of my palm.

In a second group of dozing mallards, one female stood at the edge, complaining. "Wit, wit, wit, wit ..." she kept saying. Not a quack or a squawk, just "Wit, wit, wit ..." over and over and over. I think that's mallard for "Too hot, too hot ..." She was right, too.

(They'll have been happy today; it rained. All day. Just like old times!)