As some of you know, I am from Los Angeles. California. The largest city in the US of A, spread wise. The actual square mileage is 277 bajillion.
That's big. The terrain encompasses everything from extreme urbanity, to woods. (No, really: woods.) I have seen, up close and personal outside, and twice in my own house, wildllife, far beyond squirrels and scrub jays. Coyotes (the biggest outside of Yellowstone, and as cocky as Leo De Caprio on a lucky poker night), opossums (yes, one night I came home and told my husband that there was a dead opossum in the garbage can next to the driveway, and he said, "Wanna bet?" and yes, the opossum was gone when we went back out. City girl), and skunks and hawks and raccoons (they were the the ones who got in the house, but they were all babies, born under our 100 year old house; they shimmied up through the disused heating ducts).
Then we came here, to the big Red State of Ind-Dy-Anna, and I saw eagles. Eagles! And deer, and bigger raccoons and turkey vultures and bunnies and owls and other kinds of hawks, and snakes (nobody venemous; there are no deadly snakes naturally in the wild in this state south of South Bend or north of Bloomington, and even then, herpetologists can go their entire careers here without seeing one in the wild, so calm down, Stan next door, my compost pile will not attract deadly spitting venemous cobras [which I remind him of every Halloween by putting a huge poster on the front lawn, reading "HUGE Venemous Deadly Spitting Egyptian Cobras in the backyard! 10 Bucks a Peek!" Drives him nuts. And no one's ever taken me up on it. Huh, huh?]).
I've even seen an eagle on the lawn in the backyard, tussling with a garter snake, and a lost looking turkey vulture. The hubs has never seen those, so tonight, when I went to that back window, I saw a bunny. I didn't have my glasses on. It wasn't a bunny.
It was...... a duck! A lady duck. Eating the seed and cracked corn we put out on the patio for the 25 other varieties of birds who come here to dine.
I called upstairs to the hubs to come down, quick, wildlife alert, and he limped down and there she was: sitting now, and nibbling on the cracked corn, and scooping up seed, just sitting, looking around, being a duck.
My husband said, "It's a duck." I nodded. "Yeah! A duck! Right there!" He turned to go, disgusted. "Jeez, I thought it was a jaguar or a bear." Which is when I said, "There are no jaguars or bears in Indiana." He glared, and returned to stirring his soup.
It was still cool. A duck. A duck! She flew off shortly thereafter, heading for the ponds that are only about 1/2 a mile from here, where her husband duck and eggs are probably waiting.
Still cool.