Thursday, January 31, 2013

Walking Around Fosdick Lake With Turtles And A Wounded Muscovy Duck

The return of semi-warm temperatures, it is currently 64, mid-afternoon, had the Fosdick Lake turtles sunning themselves like a convention of preening South Padre Island bathing beauties, today, in Fosdick Lake in Fort Worth's Oakland Lake Park.

Fosdick Lake looks very crystal clear blue, in the picture.

Photographs can be deceiving.

My eyes did not take the same picture of this scene when they looked at it.

In addition to the turtles there were also a lot of Fosducks enjoying the semi-warm outer world. Plus a number of humans.

A week or two ago I was at Fosdick Lake and talked to a nice lady who was feeding the ducks. She pointed out one duck who was badly injured, limping with a hurt duck leg. I'd seen this duck many times over the years, calling it a Lulu Bird, due to it looking like an odd morphing of a turkey and duck, like it was some sort of genetic mutation.

The last time I mentioned the Lulu Bird someone named Anonymous kindly pointed out to me that it was actually something called a Muscovy Duck. It did not take much Googling to discover that Anonymous was correct.


Today the Muscovy Lulu Bird was out of the water, very close to where I last saw her. Sitting at the base of the steps that lead to the Oakland Lake Park Pavilion.

The Muscovy Lulu Bird was trembling. I cut her a wide berth so as to not worry her. What injured the Muscovy Lulu Bird's leg, I wonder? Did the same type cruel person who murdered a Gateway Park armadillo, harm this duck? It would seem humans are the only predators who might harm such a creature.

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