Quack

Bright and early this morning, my friend Kevin and I headed out to Elk Island National Park to put our kayaks in for the first time this year. Unlike last year, when our eagerness saw us on the lake before the ice had gone and I capsized my boat under the ice, this morning was as perfect of a day one could wish for. The trip toward the lake saw us pass large numbers of wild Wood and Plains Bison - some of these majestic creatures going about there way mere feet from the passing window of our car. being in the presence of such creatures gives me a sense of solace which has been absent from my being since winter's harshness sends me into that depressed hibernation, and provides me with perspectives on simplicity and life.

As our boats made their tour of the lake's shore and tiny Islands, the bird life around us offered entertainment, a colourful canvas amongst the rippling, sparkling waves, and a soundtrack that has substance and soul. There's the often irate Canadian Geese who scold you as they are temperamental at the best of times; this terse nature becomes amplified when protecting their nests. We hung out with a flock of some twenty pelicans for a while. Then there's the variety of ducks who make the boggy areas along the shore home.

I must say that I am partial to ducks. They are beautiful fowl who possess an amazing prowess in both flight and swimming. What I love most about ducks is there general playfulness and the pure satisfaction the 'quacking' sound gives me. In fact, a duck says more in a 'quack' then we could ever convey in our languages as humans.

Think about it: ducks have been around for millenniums - like the chicken, relatives of the dinosaurs. While we may mock their simplicity of being and bird-brainedness as we see our civilisations rise and fall, technology expand beyond the limits of what we ever perceived possible, blah, blah, blah., ducks have continued to be... well... ducks. Their limited lexicon communicates everything that they need to say in order to live, fly as a group, mate, etc. They have not fallen the victim to 'higher consciousness' as we would describe it, with our medical miracles, genocides, worship of the almighty dollar and promulgated laws that run contrary to, but are necessary because, of our nature. There are no lawyers, prisons or therapists in the duck world. They don't have problems with obesity or drug abuse. Life and the trials of their day roll off them like...er... water off a duck's back. Obviously humanity are not ducks, nor are we capable of living such simple lives, but that doesn't mean we can't gain some perspective from our observations.

Sometimes, 'quack' says it all....