A Duck Eulogy

Wherever Good Ducks Go…

“Aflac,” the neighborhood duck, died sometime this morning. He was between 11 and 14 years old. He had been looking sickly for about 6 weeks, but the trouble really began two weeks ago. We came home one day and noticed that he had a large wound on his left hindquarter, near his tail. It looked like a puncture wound, as if he had either been poked by a stick while swimming in the pond or been pecked by one of the crows that always crowded around when we fed him. The wound was nasty looking - bright orange with stuff oozing out of it. It must have hurt like the dickens because “Aflac” kept scratching at it with his beak. In the last week or so the wound became black, probably scabbed over, and looked even worse. Saturday, he was sitting in an unusual spot down at the far side of the pond. We were hoping he was there because it was a shady place on a hot day. Yesterday, we had to look really hard to find him, eventually we thought we saw him sleeping in the backyard of our landlord’s brother’s place. This morning, he was at the edge of the pond with his head in the water. He probably made it down from the yard to get something to drink before he passed on to wherever good ducks go. We will miss the little guy.

Via: loebrich.org