Telluride Vacation: fun with ducks

Telluride is a very family-friendly town. One great section of the town (that I had never noticed before this trip) was the playground/park area on the far east side of Telluride. This is a very large park with baseball fields, a skateboard area, a playground built especially for 1-1/2-year-olds, and a children's fishing pond. The pond is stocked with fish and only children (12 and under) are allowed to fish from it. As an added bonus, about two dozen ducks live on the pond and are very willing to investigate any visitor in the hopes of getting free food.



While we were playing at the playground one morning, a family with a young son walked up to the pond, and the ducks descended on this family from all over the pond! Soon there were ducks everywhere, waddling around, quacking, begging for food, and even fighting over the choicest handouts. The family came very well prepared with some stale bread, and the ducks were eager to relieve them of it. Adelaida was interested in this, so left the playground to watch the boy feed the ducks.

Adelaida was predictably cautious at first, content to watch the ducks waddling around her without actually touching them. But the ducks were not so content to just watch her! They knew that she was a human child, and human children mean food for these essentially domesticated ducks -- about half of the ducks left the family with the boy to try their luck with Adelaida.

Fortunately (for the ducks, at least), the family offered to let Adelaida give the ducks some of their stale bread. She took one piece of bread, examined it, and carefully put it in her mouth. Of course I explained to her that this particular bread was for the ducks and encouraged her to remove the bread from her mouth. She just got the bread out of her mouth before several ducks darted at her hand, eager to take the bread she wasn't going to eat. The ducks were so fast that I was startled by them (and was nipped myself when a duck removed the second piece of bread from my hand). Even as she was being attacked by hungry ducks, Adelaida just stood there, occasionally pointing at the ducks and saying "duck." She was completely unfazed by them!