The 'ducks' converge, Lake Ginninderra, Canberra It was like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.” We –that is my two year old granddaughter, her Dad and I had gone down to Lake Ginninderra in Canberra to do a bit of duck feeding. We called them 'ducks' but really they included all kinds of water birds both native and domestic– coots, herons – colloquially known as “garbage chickens,” one large black and white domestic duck, several native ones and a swan. It was an experiment really. Knowing that it wasn’t a good idea to feed them bread, especially the native birds, we had three kinds of duck food with us – mixed bird seed, dried peas and cooked rice to see which the ‘ducks’ would prefer. They came from near and far, even this swan.... ... and an actual duck Soon they were converging on us from all directions and they weren’t at all fussy about what they ate. There was a veritable feeding frenzy which got so bad that w...
Practising Geographer - nature culture places people