Huachuca Views Sandra Smith

through them. Was it a male bird with his wings outspread, making a fool of himself? Or was it a female avoiding an unwelcome suitor? When Kate had been a secretary at the aerospace firm, the men in her office would yell, “Duck rape!” and run to the windows overlooking the pond. The first time, Kate had gone with them. A drake was chasing a female mallard across the lake. The two ducks quacked and flapped furiously, their heavy bodies bouncing across the water as they struggled to take off. The men were rooting for the drake, of course. Kate whispered to the hen, “Keep flapping, girl, you can make it.” But the drake caught her before the hen could escape. He grasped the female’s neck with his beak. He held her down and covered her with his wings. Did she have time to breathe before he thrust her sleek head underwater? Kate held her own breath until the hen broke free and flew across the lake, still quacking. A beakful of small feathers bobbing in the water was the only evidence that “duck rape” had taken place. The men high-fived each other. Kate fled back to her desk. At lunch, she saved her French fries for the female ducks. She did not feed the drakes again that year.

Fortunately, not all mating rituals were as violent as those of mallards and wood ducks. Kate anticipated a happier ending for this drama in the flowerbed. A Brewer’s blackbird emerged from the snapdragons. It stopped between two pansies, staring at her with an arrogant yellow eye. An equally confident brown female stood behind him, perfectly balanced on her powerful legs. Had the male bird already fluffed his feathers and quivered provocatively? Had he hovered over the female and delicately tread her back? Kate hoped she hadn’t missed the show. To Kate’s surprise, a common ground dove scuttled out of the flowers toward her. There was something peculiar about the way the dove moved, how it held its head low and tottered from side to side. The male blackbird took a single leap toward the dove and looked at Kate again, as if it were asking her for permission. The dove lurched closer.

Without warning, the blackbird leaped onto the dove and covered it with his iridescent wings. He struck its gray-feathered head with his sturdy pointed beak. A pale, pink streak appeared on the dove’s neck. Kate shouted, “No!” A man sitting on a nearby bench lowered his newspaper to watch. Unperturbed by the noise, the blackbird struck again. Kate waved, shouted and stamped until the blackbird jumped back a few inches. The dove limped toward Kate, holding one gray wing away from its body. Kate knelt down and reached for the dove, then stopped with her empty hands cupped in front of her. What could she possibly do with an injured bird during class? Her economics professor wouldn’t appreciate it if a bird disrupted the lecture, and she didn’t have a jacket in which to wrap the bird. She couldn’t carry the dove to class in her bare hands, could she? And she couldn’t afford another absence. Not in this course. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered to the dove. The blackbird interpreted her apology as approval and lunged forward. Kate almost fell over backwards. “Stop that right now!” she said firmly, waving her hands in front of the bird and hoping it wouldn’t peck her too. The man with the newspaper laughed. Kate felt like a fool for getting involved. Nature was supposed to take its course, right? What was Kate going to do, adopt a wild bird and take care of it for the rest of her life?

Last year, one of her coworkers had found an injured duck in the parking lot when he came into the office. He placed the duck in a cardboard box he had found by the dumpster and brought it in through the back, hoping their supervisor wouldn’t notice. At first, the duck had tried to climb out. Then somebody found some duct tape – which of course led to a lot of stupid jokes about ducks and ducts – and the man taped the lid shut. The duck settled down, smelling faintly of green water and rustling occasionally until it was time to go home. Kate didn’t remember the man’s real name—everybody just called him Feo, which they said was Spanish for ugly. As far as Kate could see, there had been nothing particularly ugly about Feo, and rescuing the bird seemed like a beautiful thing to do. But the duck had never flown again and Feo’s neighbor had ended up keeping it in a little plastic wading pool as a pet. Kate definitely did not want to take the dove home. It wasn’t just the commitment. This dove might be sick as well as injured. Maybe the blackbirds had attacked the dove because it was weak and dying. She could take it home and spend hours caring for it, only to have it die anyway.

Not only that, but wild birds had lice. Kate knew for a fact that at least 117 different species of parasites could be found on a single bird feather. This dove could host any number of germs and parasites. If this bird entered her house, her own parakeets might die. Kate stopped waving and studied the dove, trying to decide if its feathers looked glossy or if it might have some disease. The male blackbird was willing to wait while Kate made up her mind but the female was getting restless. She gave her mate a sharp look as if to say, “If you won’t do it, I will,” and leaped forward. By this time, the dove had almost made it out of the pansies to the sidewalk in front of Kate. There was no way she could let the blackbirds