I was reading, quietly, alone on a blanket beside a lake near Queenstown.
I became aware of sound of many little birds, peeping. I looked up, there were 10 little ducklings, running up the small hill towards me.
It was a true invasion. Before I could even reach out to call to them, they were all over my picnic blanket, all over me. Their little cold wet webbed feet tickling my bare arms. Peeping around me, climbing up on my backpack, checking out my camera.
They swarmed me. I didn’t feed them. I looked up at their mother, standing off to the side. I said, ‘Is this okay?’
She looked at me, as if to say, ‘Sure, I’ve got 10. What can I do?’
I was alone there. I took as many photographs as I could manage while giggling over their antics. They’re not brilliant photographs, just my phone but I think they capture the moment. There’s one with a little duckling, out of focus, near the camera. She had just pecked it, as I took photographs.
They were hilarious.
Eventually they ran off, like a gaggle of hyper-active happy small children.
Two returned, and hung round for a while, so I walked them back to the lake edge, where the others were waiting.
Diego, an Italian guy from Verona, walked by with his partner, Macarena. I heard him speak Italian and called out a greeting. (Yes, I am that bad. I adore meeting up with Italians, back here in New Zealand)
We ended up chatting a while, it turned out that Macarena came from Chile. They had only just married, a few weeks earlier. Helen returned from her walk around the lake. I was telling them my improbable story of the ducklings, when the ‘team’ turned up again. Delighting us all.
This new Queenstown life is like that. Something beautiful happens most days, and I’m left pinching myself, not sure it can be real.
But the ducklings. Meet my new friends, the Duck Family.