The pier just north of where I sit in the mornings is home to some ducks. I never knew just how many, and I guess I still don't know, but it's at least seven, because this morning they were all floating around in the open water as the mist burned off and the sun came up. For a little while they seemed to be making a cricle, and staying about twenty feet south of the pier; then they broke into two groups and I realized they were two varieties of duck. The plumper browner ones, three of them, stayed together and bobbed slowly south, as the river was flowing. The other four, two green-headed males and two females, all swam off together back to the pier, where they climbed out onto wood beams below. I'd wondered where they sat when they wanted to be out of the water; now I see they've found beams that are the farthest from shore and also in the afternoon sun the longest. Maybe they'll nest there in the spring? They're clearly two couples, and as clearly a flock, very companionable: the Ricardos and Mertzes of duckdom.