The One Where I Interrupt Duck Mating Rituals

 

A few years ago, I wrote about the crazy geese in Boise during nesting season. But have you ever witnessed a duck mating ritual? It's horrifying. 

 

 

Male ducks practice something called "forced copulation," which is exactly what it sounds like. This article on duck mating cautions against "applying human moral standards to animals" and states (correctly) that "for us humans, it can be hard to watch." 

It is. Male ducks will often gang up on one female. They pin her down by biting her neck, sometimes drawing blood. They chase her because she just as aggressively tries to get away. Sometimes the female drowns if the male duck tries to mate her in the water.

I confess, that on several occasions, I have interfered with the circle of life by halting this process and running the male ducks off. 

 

"Leave her alone!" I will yell, clapping my hands toward the ducks. "She doesn't want you!"

 

"Becky, you can't do that," Dan said to me one evening while I reacted to this phenomenon.

 

"But the males ducks rape the females!" I said. 

"You're going against nature."

 

"I'm saving them."

 

Yes, I know I'm anthropomorphizing these mallards, but I don’t like seeing violence against females anywhere, including the animal kingdom.

 

 

 

One morning after a jog, I was stretching out in our neighborhood park, and I heard a young girl behind me yelling, "Stop that! Stop! Now!"  

 

She was going after a group of about three mallards trying to pin a female by mounting her and biting the back of her neck.
 

This is a girl after my own heart, I thought. 

 

I joined her, and we yelled at the mallards until they left the female alone. 

 

"I don't like it when they do that either," I told the girl. "I always try to chase them off."

 

By this time, another girl, her sister, had joined us.

 

“That's Big Mama,” she said. 

 

"You've named the ducks?" I asked, thinking, Thank goodness I'm not the only who projects human traits onto animals.

 

"See her wing? She is injured," the first girl explained. "That's why Big Mama can't fly away when they do that."

 

"That's awful," I said.

"Did you know there is a spider that eats her mate after she has babies?" the sister asked me.

Apparently, these girls were very aware of the presence of brutality in the animal kingdom.

 

"Are you talking about the black widow?" I asked.
 

"Yeah. Do you know the cartoon cat that loves lasagna?"

 

"Garfield?"

 

"Yeah! In one of the comics in the book, a black widow tells Garfield she ate her mate. It's funny." 

 

"Sounds hilarious."

 

I wondered how Garfield would approach duck mating rituals . . .

 

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.

Happy Delusional 4th of July!

 

Happy Delusional 4th of July, everyone! Here in Idaho, we celebrate our country's independence by setting things on fire and blowing shit up, all the while frightening pets and, most ironically, the veterans with PTSD who have fought for the freedoms we supposedly venerate. We Idahoans value our freedom so much that we refused to wear face coverings in the middle of a public health crisis because . . . liberty!

 

I don't know about you, but it sounded like WWIII in our neighborhood, and all of this was in the middle of a major drought. What could possibly go wrong?

 

But this little rant of mine is not the reason I'm labeling the holiday as "Delusional" this year. 

 

Over the July 4th weekend, my husband, Dan, and I went jogging on the Greenbelt to check out the new mural near our side of town.

 

 

 

 

However, just down the street from this mural which professes the message, "Radiate Positivity," another seemingly contradictory statement was being made.

 

 

"Trump won?!'" I exclaimed. "Also, he's going to 'Save America?' That's who they put their faith in? His organization and CFO were just charged with tax fraud. Sounds patriotic to me . . ." 

 

Yet, there is a large segment of our population who truly believe the election (and not Trump's taxes) was a fraud.   

I know this because people were honking in support as they drove by. 

"Stop honking!" I yelled at the passing cars. "You're delusional!"

All the while, a private plane flying a banner with some sort of anti-abortion propaganda circled overhead.

 

"That has to be great for the environment . . ." I muttered. 

 

Welcome to my dystopian movie. 

You might think Dan was embarrassed by my counterprotest on the sidewalk. You would be wrong.

"Geesh, what a bunch of old white guys," Dan said, shaking his head.

 

As we drove by this display of wackiness, Dan rolled down the car window and glanced at me expectantly. 

 

Emboldened by Dan, I yelled at them, "He didn't win just because you wanted him to! That's not how democracy works!"

 

Then the traffic light turned red, and we found ourselves stopped right in front of the delusional gathering. Dan rolled up the car window as we both stared straight ahead.

 

There are still a lot of American flags flying around the city. I suppose there will be for a while, maybe forever. People love their flags in Idaho. 

 

A couple of days later, I was running on another stretch of Greenbelt and found this fun display. Now this is the 4th of July decoration I can get behind.

 

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.

My Mental Health Summer

 

I decided, after the 2020-2021 school year, to commit to absolutely NOTHING academic-related this summer. This is my Mental Health Summer.

 

First, my husband, Dan, and I planted oak tree saplings. 

 

My father has been trying to give these plants to us for months now. During one of my pandemic singalongs while school was shut down, I played the song, “I found a little acorn lying on the ground . . . just look we have grown, my daddy and me. An oak tree!"

 

My dad commented on the video and said he did, in fact, have two oak tree seedlings grown from acorns. Of course he did. They were sitting in his backyard in Twin Falls. This was months ago. We finally picked them up a few weeks ago and planted them in our backyard in Boise.

 

 

 

 

Then, we went back to the movie theater for the first time in a year. We saw In the Heights because what else would I, the musical theater nerd, want to see on the big screen?

 

 

 

I have also been doing a lot of jogging on the Greenbelt. I have also been doing a lot of sneezing on the Greenbelt. The other morning, I sneezed so loud, I startled a dog, the lady walking him, and a bunch of construction workers. 

 

"There's lots of pollen flying around here!" I called out to all the people (and pets) staring at me in disbelief. 

 

I got my mammogram in June, a few months later than usual. Fun fact: Getting a mammogram has gotten easier over the years. I think I'm used to the boob squishing now. Chalk it up to one more lucky thing we women experience on the road to middle-aged. I still breathed a sigh of relief when I got the results in the mail. Cancer is a scary word, no matter what.

 

Also this summer, we had so much fun with my uncle, my cousin, and her family from out-of-state, showing them all around Boise, trying not get them too lost when I was the tour guide.

 

 

We spent a weekend with the nephews. Oh yeah, my brother and dad were there too. 

 

We climbed trees.

 

We played at Urban Air. The jury is still out on whether that was more for the kids or the adults.

 

 

 

 

And no summer would be complete without a baseball game, even in the 100+ degree temperatures.

 

 

Now I just have to figure out how to make this Mental Health Summer last . . .

 

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.