The river has cleaned up in the last twenty years. Nature works and thrives.
The bald eagle fishes at the edge of the ice. He appears to eat the dead fish that were perhaps killed by the hard freeze and long winter.
The diving ducks are there - buffleheads, goldeneyes, mergansers, and more. A miscellaneous duck group. A social network.
They bob as yachts together, moving out and around to fish as a fleet, feeding, resting. Floating, bobbing they are.
I imagine the underwater ice edge, the cliff I cannot see.
Fish with cover, peeking out (do fish peek?) into open river water - long had the river been frozen.
I feel lucky to see the lovely ducks. So happy to be, king of the world they are.
Tax time - for them no accountants, no tax man.
Working man is jealous of free ducks. Another reason to shoot them. They are such lovely boats, paddling.
Then - oh, my heart - they dive: first leaping briefly up, diving down under, then swimming and preying underwater. They can stay down a long time, and when they come up, one often sees a fish in a duck's beak for a moment while the bird takes a breath first perhaps, and then swallows the fish whole.
