Friday, February 11, 2011

Ducks, alive and dead

 

Each time I pass this pond I take a few photos because the water isn’t going to last and what they pump in there after the water from the rains recedes, no self-respecting duck would want to swim in.

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I couldn’t see this at the time, I had the lens set at 125mm, but at home I noticed that one of the ducks had died.  I wasn’t initially positive this was the case, but subsequent photos verified it.

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I’m reading Eric Bergerud’s Touched with Fire, The Land War in the South Pacific.  Bergerud set himself an interesting task.  He sought to examine the forces of the Australians, Americans and Japanese in the earliest battles in the South Pacific, before America began outproducing the Japanese to the point that they had no chance.  In those early days the Japanese seemed to have a very good chance.  Some allied soldiers thought the Japanese would win.   

After seeing the other ducks swimming around the dead one I was reminded of Bergerud’s accounts of soldiers sleeping in close proximity to enemy (and allied) dead.  Some soldiers reported being able to smell them still when they thought about it.  Do ducks fight other?  I can’t believe that they do.

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