Just before them, on the ice, a little troop of ducks was going by, fowl dispossessed of their wonted swimming-ground by the all-hardening frost. Of every two steps the waddlers took, one was a hopeless slip, and the spectacle presented by the unhappy birds in their effort to get along at a good round pace was ludicrous beyond resistance. They sprawled and fell, they staggered up again with indignant wagging of head and tail, they rushed forward only to slip more desperately; now one leg failed them, now the other, now both at once. And all the time they kept up a cackle of annoyance; they looked about them with foolish eyes of amazement and indignation; they wondered, doubtless, what the world was coming to, when an honest duck’s piece of water was suddenly stolen from him, and he was subjected to insult on the top of injury.

"A well-bred duckling spreads his feet wide apart, just like his father and mother, in this way. Now bend your neck, and say 'quack.'" The

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.

Each has to enter the nest made by the other imperfect bird.

There is truth in the tale of the Ugly Duckling. If you are a swan and unrecognised as such, living with a duck family, that thinks you are a duck, expects you to behave like a duck, and at times might coerce you to be more like a duck – you have a problem… You will have poor self-esteem and the need to isolate yourself at the same time that you try not to be isolated. Indeed, if things get bad enough, you will eventually decide that further attempts at communication will only bring on more trouble, so you stop trying to communicate.

I poked my head through the bushes, and saw that the little bunch I was after had joined a great flock of teal, which was on a sand bar in the middle of the stream. They were all huddled together, some standing on the bar, and others in the water right by it, and I aimed for the thickest part of the flock. At the report they sprang into the air, and I leaped to my feet to give them the second barrel, when, from under the bank right beneath me, two shoveller or spoon-bill ducks rose, with great quacking, and, as they were right in line, I took them instead, knocking both over. When I had fished out the two shovellers, I waded over to the sand bar and picked up eleven teal, making thirteen ducks with the two barrels.

"I once saw two ducks brawling, and I thought, "Hey, it's a pre-pillow fight." It was so violent that it made me want to capture their energy and take a nap."

It takes time and deeds, and this involves trust, it involves making ourselves vulnerable to each other…to become sitting ducks for each other — — and if one of the ducks is shamming, then the sincere duck will pay in pain — -but the deceitful duck, I feel, will be the loser.

This object, which somewhat resembles a flight of wild ducks in shape, is a gathering of minute stars.

Was that you or the duck?

Marriage is like a cage one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate to get out...

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.

Got some dirty tricks? If that’s how it is, you done drove your ducks to the wrong puddle.