Duck Whisperers

Our first day in New Zealand was a bit too “Wild Kingdom” for me. My brain spent most of the day in a behind-closed-doors, super clandestine meeting in which it and the rest of my body parts, internal and external organs mainly, deliberated (rather heatedly at times) just which time zone they were in. They never really came to a decision; my eyes were dead set on having adjusted to the time in New Zealand and claimed the rest of my body should follow suit, since it was light out and the best indicator of the time of day. My stomach, after having been fed bizarre plane food at bizarre times for three days-worth of flights and long layovers, simply threw up its metaphorical arms in a gesture of surrender and stormed out of the meeting. My frustrated brain, who called the meeting in the first place, finally decided that doing so gave him the power to determine what my body should do. So, it ordered that Marisa sleep for a freakish amount of time, an almost comatose-level sleep, in order to make up for so many hours of snoozing lost.

After waking up, I felt much better rested, and we walked down to get the feel for the neighborhood in which we were staying. We lacked the energy to do much exploring, so we walked down to the water and had a seat on a bench. After a few moments of unmolested relaxation, we noticed that we had a feathery little visitor: one of the strangest ducks I had ever seen. In the States, we have a variety of duck breeds, of which I am most accustomed to the mallard. In New Zealand, they have the Paradise duck, which is what our visitor turned out to be.

This little duck bumbled about, not making much noise but getting incredibly close to us, presumably asking for food. We had none, which the duck realized, but somehow he still felt like sticking around. A duck that craved human company, how sweet.

Eventually we got a little wigged out by the proximity of the duck as well as struck by the urge to walk around a bit more, so we stood up, said goodbye to our feathery friend, and continued on our way. It turned out, however, that the duck was not ready to part ways. The moment we began walking, he waddled right up to our side. He followed us like a faithful dog well versed in the command “heel.” When we stopped, he stopped as well and patiently waited. When we rushed to cross a street, he flew across to join us. There were many couples walking past whom the duck could have joined in hopes that they had food like we didn't, but he stayed by our side.

Curious passersby made a number of comments, like “wow, that’s quite the pet!” and asked us how we got the duck to follow. We simply shrugged. The duck only made sounds as we ran to try and ditch it on the way home (we couldn't just bring a duck back to a home where we were guests, could we?) and he began squawking and running after us. Eventually we decided to name him Dennis the Duck, though Donald was also up for an option.

So, we learned that ducks can have a deep, beautiful loyalty for humans and can, indeed, crave our companionship. Or Dennis had some kind of mental disorder.