Went to the Liberty game with Warren and JL last night. JL asked why I hadn't been blogging lately. I allowed as how the state of the world, especially the middle east, has got me so far down I haven't been able to bring myself to write about stoplights and waterbirds. JL opined that the state of the world will not be improved by my not reporting on the duck and goose action, and that further, if writing about the small intriguing events around me gives me -- and maybe even some of you -- any sense of joy and hope, then that not only contributes to the net joy and hope in the world, but may make it a tiny bit easier for me to take some actual action to improve the state of the world.

So I'm back, to tell you The Duck Story With The Happy Ending. And JL, if the above wasn't what you meant, keep it to yourself.

A few weeks ago I saw a group of seven still-fluffy mallard ducklings and their mother feeding around the pilings. When the mother flew off, it took the youngstres awhile to figure out she was gone; then they coalesced into a seven-duckling wedge and swam around the piling where she'd been sitting, peeping for her forlornly. One of them, a tiny bit bigger than the others, was in the lead no matter which direction they swam in. Finally, she came back and led them way north, three piers away, to the cove where they were born. They swam after her in a line, with the same one in the lead again.

Yesterday, early in the morning, a pier north of where they'd been, but still south of where they were born, I saw a goose with three half-grown goslings dining; and about ten feet from them, a single adolescent duck. He was clearly with them: every time the group moved, he'd move in that same direction. But they didn't want him around, and wouldn't let him get any closer. They were all eating like crazy, and the adult goose kept track of her goslings but paid no attention to the duck, except to stare him down when he tried to approach.

Of course right away I worried. Was this an orphan? Had rats gotten his brothers and sisters, and maybe his mother too? If so, and he was trying to attach himself to this band of geese, he wasn't going to survive, because they were not planning to look after him.

So as they swam north, the duckling struggling to keep pace with the geese (who are bigger and older), I jogged north to the place where they nest beyond the Sanitation pier. I was hoping to find another one or two ducks his age, though what I was going to do if I did I have no idea. The geese stopped under the pier, but the duckling swam out, into the cove. He was the only duck in the water, and I thought my fears were realized: but no! When I leaned forward to see the small strip of sand, there were all his brothers and sisters, all six, and his mother, just waking up. They groomed themselves, and eventually slid into the water, where sooner or later I'm sure they met up with the lost one. So now here's what I think happened: this is the big one, the ambitious one who led the duckling wedge. He woke up early, took to the water without mom and family, and went to find himself some breakfast. He saw some feathered behinds swimming and hurried to catch up with them, and by the time he realized he'd left the locker room with the wrong team, he had no idea how to get home and had to stick with them, hoping they'd show him the way.

Bigger, and maybe braver. But not real smart.

The other find, though, was that the other female mallard had a brood (a clutch? what is it, when it's ducks?) of much younger ones, eight of them maybe a week old. She must have lost her first eggs, but she went right back and did it again. So now we have lots of ducks on my little part of the Hudson.

And the Liberty won, too.