Duck Hunting in December
We spent the late morning following narrow paths to secret ponds, crouching behind cattails and sedges as we tried to sneak up on floating birds. Ducks and waterfowl are skittish, so we moved slowly, trying not to scare them away. After spending the past four days inside with awful migraine pain, the sun on my face feels like an answered prayer.
We flushed the birds three times, although we thought we were careful. A group of six would quack and flap and come back to land again on the pond’s silver surface. We had to keep our distance from each other and creep painfully slowly to get a glimpse of the black tuxedo coat worn by a male ring-necked duck.
Despite the name, it is nearly impossible to see the ring on a living bird. This species got its name from field markings that are easily visible when studying the carcass of the bird, the way Audubon and other early naturalists did.
Ring or no ring, the ring-necked duck is striking with his black cloak and white underside. A female, less striking the way female waterfowl almost always are, floats beside him. The dry reeds crinkle beneath our feet as we snake our way closer to the birds.
A single pied-bill grebe floats near the ring-necked duck, which is tiny by comparison. Grebes are waterbirds through and through. Their flat bodies are boat-shaped, perfect for ferrying around baby chicks. Their huge, wrinkly, webbed feet sit near the back of their bodies like a propeller on a boat. Their beaks are thick and full.
Despite their small size, grebes travel thousands of miles each year. Their boat bodies are adapted to water and the air, but their paddle feet are almost useless on land. Like most birds, they tend to travel at night, leaving one body of water to land in another many miles away.
The black asphalt of roads and parking lots shines like water in the dark, and every year, dozens of birds strand themselves. They land thinking they’re on a body of water, and they cannot take off again when they find themselves on the asphalt. They need water to act as a runway, and the positioning of their feet makes it so they cannot walk on land.
Grebes were born to spend their lives dropping in and out of the cold, dark deep. Their bodies are made to float, fly, dive, and swim. Like the rest of us, their lives are made and unmade by the wonders and limitations of those bodies.
I watch the grebe dive, stay under for nearly a minute, and then surface again with a flourish. Over the noisy coots, I hear my phone ping. Voicemail. From Walgreens. My medication is back-ordered, and I have to call around to other pharmacies.
“Talk to a pharmacist.” I enunciate loudly, trying to get past the robot gatekeeper to speak to a living person. I know the hold music by heart, and I hum along while I wait. The early December sun is warm on my skin.
It only took three phone calls to locate a pharmacy with my drugs in stock. My boyfriend will pick it up for me later since driving is difficult. A 15-minute errand in a car is enough to make me dizzy and ill, stealing energy from later. We rode our electric bikes to this pond—my preferred mode of transportation.
At first, riding a bike triggered my vertigo, and I gripped the handlebars with white knuckles. But I spent my childhood riding beach cruisers in the neighborhood and my 20s riding road bikes next to the ocean. I’ve always felt free and alive on a bike, the world rushing past as my legs pump and my heart beats fast. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to flying. It didn’t take long for my body to remember.
I hung up after briefly speaking to the pharmacist and focused my attention completely on the scene in front of me. An egret wearing shining white. Northern shovelers spin lazily on the surface. A black phoebe wearing a tuxedo cheeps excitedly into the wind as she chases insects over open water.
My body was not built for this life or this environment, covered in concrete. But I’ve found a way to survive. I’ve found pockets of wildness in the suburbs and open spaces where I spread my wings. I dip in and out of this realm of well and abled-bodies people. I need to for survival.
Life with chronic pain is tedious—many phone calls, prior authorizations and appointments, and coordinating care across multiple providers. After ten years, I’m burned out on the mundane tasks required to keep this body functioning.
The hours spent on hold, the pills, and devices. The buoyancy required to keep this body bobbing on the surface of health, diving deep into sickness again and again, floating underwater with the skills of a grebe, staying under for an impossibly long time. When you think he must’ve drowned—nothing with lungs and without fins can stay in the water for that long, surely—he pops up on the surface with a dramatic flourish, water rolling off the grease that coats his feathers.
Not all of us are lucky enough to spend our lives on the surface, dipping and dabbling our beaks into the water. Some of us were born to dive, swim, and spend a portion of time in the depths without sunlight, oxygen, or the company of others. Hunting and seeking alone until finally surfacing to breathe cool air and gather our strength before diving under again.
If we’re lucky, we surface with treasure collected in the dark—a nugget of nourishment. We enjoy a long moment in the sun before slipping off alone once more to the depths of the pond. Dipping our animal bodies beneath the surface into the anoxic abyss, we hold our breath.
Photos by Peter @dptbirder
Postscript
Free Palestine.