In Pursuit of Ducks June 9, 2008

So we still have tons of bread and no one to feed it to. We’re told that Lake Los Carneros in Goleta is the place to go. Park by the road and follow the foot path to the pond.

Easy enough. Here’s the footpath….

Still no pond but what’s with these awesome trees?! I would have needed a panoramic lens to capture this archaic and tremendous being. It canopied an entire area and its branches (which dipped to the ground and then grew back up) could easily have been mistaken for other trees. Incredible. We climbed and were thankful for it. But where’s the pond?

Reluctant to leave the tree but always up for a good mystery hunt, we tried to find clues that would tell us which paths might take us to said pond. We tried taking all the paths that went toward more green areas (that would indicate more water, right?). Then Elijah found a dried creek bed that he felt would be used for run-off from a pond. He told us we should follow that up as that would be where the water would come from.

When you’re in the woods, stick with Elijah. This was the scene that stretched out before us when we crested the hill. Breathtaking.

As we approached the pond, we saw a few ducks and were pleased. Within 10 seconds we were overrun with HUGE geese and a random assortment of TONS of ducks. It was overwhelming and a little frightening. New Hampshire taught me to be afraid of geese and these had their webbed feet standing on my flip-flopped ones as I shielded the children from what I perceived as a potential threat. Turns out they’re just REALLY friendly (and hungry). Wild.

This guy’s (we haven’t yet figured out what they are) babies had just hatched and were wobbling around and wiggling their wing nubs. After we fed him bread, we watched as he went down and regurgitated morsels for the babes. There were also several demonstrations of impressive aggression in defense of the area the babies inhabited.

We got WAY more than ducks this day.