Lunch Duck inspiration
Finding inspiration for a story is the easiest part of writing one, in my opinion. Everything can be a story. The hard part for me has always been, “so how does it end?”. Yesterday I was at the mall, I was eating lunch and a duck waddled right up close to me. The closest I’d ever been to a duck. Without thinking, I extended a French fry. He took it from my hand. It certainly wasn’t his first encounter with humans or their food. I was so happy he came so close I was very pleased to be in his company and I wanted him to stay longer. I snapped a few pics, and went about my day. When I got home I was still thinking about him so I drew him from his photo. I told my family about him. I told Rosie too, she said, “this should be something you blog about”. The next day, today, I sat down to write about this “lunch duck” that I had encountered.
In doing just a tiny bit of research I discovered French fries are very bad for ducks, any processed food is. I knew it was frowned upon to feed ducks because, like all wild animals, they become dependent on it. But, I didn’t realize how much it actually physically hurts them and their offspring. I take my kids to feed the ducks our bread ends now and then (won’t do that anymore), I guess I tell myself I’m not the only one feeding them. I absolutely love feeding ducks, always have. I used to feed the swans at Bond’s dock in Stratford, Ct where I grew up. I felt bad, that maybe I had doomed this(ese) duck(s), at this point he will starve if people don’t feed him. Pretty sure mine wasn’t his first fry and one could argue it’s a responsibility to feed them because, now that they’ve been fed by humans, they will starve without it. Maybe places like malls should make available corn or peas or oats for them if a duck ever gets itself into a situation like this one. This bad food consumption is a problem with ducks (and other wild animals) and in my opinion, it could use a little more attention. And, since a story about a duck is on my list for my picture books I decided to make this encounter into a picture book. I’ve added a bit of information for awareness to a very playful rhyme and I’m eager to get started on the illustrations. Luckily the ending in this story came easily to me this time. No more fries, no more crackers, no more bread.
*also, as a side note… I realize that, in my first blog post, I sing to the tune of This Old Man and not Twinkle Twinkle as I stated in the video. It makes me laugh thinking about it. I’m not going to change it because the point remains the same. Just thought I’d make mention of it ;).
