Lovely Wild Ducklings
Lovely Wild Ducklings
The other day I went out for a walk. I’d like to see a wild duck island in downtown which I’ve heard long before. In the center of Beijing, not far from the Forbidden City, there is a park called Shichahai Lake. It has become a popular tourist resort in recent years for its large amount of traditional architecture which have been especially preserved, and also its lakeside sceneries. There are several huge mansions originally belonged to the princes of Qing Dynasty, but
later one mansion became the residence of Madam Song Qingling (wife of Dr. Sun
Yat-sen, 1866-1925) and others became residences of Chinese literate giant Guo Moruo and Mao Dun. But one place is particularly attractive to me – The Wild Duck Island. Well, it is not a real island; it is a small man-made island for our guests - wild ducks.
It is said that seven years ago, a pair of wild duck happened to land on a small
flat made of bamboo in west part of the lake, not far from the bank. It was very small at that time, about two square miters only, people say, but it was big enough for the pair of ducks that traveled from afar. Maybe they were too tired to fly further to the south; or maybe they were also attracted by the ideal living condition. Anyhow, the couple settled down at this island in late autumn, 2000
.
A few months later when spring came, people found out with great joy that the duck couple was followed by a few lovely ducklings in the lake. The news was spread quickly among city dwellers because it was very rare for city dwellers to see
wild animals in such a short distance. People have paid much attention to them since then. Sometimes the duck families on the lake became headlines on newspaper
! The small island then has been rapidly expanded because each year in the past
several years, more wild duck families have joined in. They migrated to and fro
in early years. But last autumn as it was getting cold, those animals did not leave to find warmer places to spend the winter. They were settled down here!
Approaching to the island, I can see the island now has expanded into as big as
one hundred square meters and there are several huts on it. I can also hear lots
of kids shouting excitedly. Wow, there are over hundreds of ducks, big and small. Some are resting on the island; a pair of big wild grey geese is walking around slowly, holding their heads high. A large flock of ducklings are guided by several female ducks disporting themselves in the water while some male ducks are
guarding nearby. It seems that they are not really afraid of people. When kids throwing food they come near, jumping up and down, eyeball to eyeball over the same piece of food. We cannot tell if all those little ducklings are offspring of
the original pair of duck or there are from other families. Anyhow, now they are
living together happily and peacefully. But one thing disturbs me a little, I don’t know whether it is good or not - it seems that those wild ducks have been
treated with excessive care by human being; they look more likely domestic animals now and do not migrate any more!
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