Animals are so freakin cool.

I was running today on my usual trail which takes me past a duck pond. As I ran by the pond and approached a group of ducks, most of them sort of sidled away from me toward the pond. But a single duck shot out of the group and started running directly away from me.

His wings were not flapping at all and his little duck feet were pumping as fast as they could in a straight line along the path. I thought I had spooked him, but as I came up next to the duck he did not veer away. So there I was, running neck and neck with this duck, as if it was some kind of race. Well, this was a race I was not going to lose. As I pulled ahead of the duck, he was still going in a straight line -- following me now -- on the path. Wierd, I thought, I just beat a duck at the 10 meter dash!

And as I looked back again I saw what the whole thing was about. The pond was on our left side, and on the right side of the trail is a road. The duck suddenly veered from the trail into the street, where I noticed another duck was standing, head down, poking around for something on the pavement.

And runner duck got right up to street duck, got right in his face, and just let him have it. "Quack quack quack! Quack! Quack quack!" I think he was saying, "Get out of the street, you bozo!" And runner duck turned right around and walked back onto the path, still quacking up a storm. Street duck followed right behind with his head hung down.