Wild Ducks in the Park - Show Me A Photo Contest Round 9

A new contest, a new theme imposed by our dear colleagues who deal with the community of those who love birds.

Bird in water

I also really like birds and I remember my beautiful childhood spent in the country. From morning until the evening I was with friends in the fields, hills, and forests. There were birds everywhere and I loved watching them. There were many more birds than now, I've been talking about fifty years ago, and I even noticed that some species have disappeared. Sad!

Childhood passed so quickly, looking back now, and so the most beautiful part of our lives. Unfortunately, we don't realize this when we are young. I'm thinking now of a Pink Floyd song, Shine On You Crazy Diamond ...

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.

Old and sad, I am still looking for the beauty of birds, unfortunately far from the place of childhood. Now among concrete houses, high blocks, and crowded streets. But fortunately, we have parks, some green oases. The place where birds can live and we can look at them. These are different birds, already accustomed to the presence of man near them.

I walked one morning through Carol Park in Bucharest, a park far from my house and where I go quite rarely. A beautiful park that deserves a separate presentation.

In recent years I have noticed a new phenomenon in my city (but which is probably happening all over the world) namely that wild birds (in the sense that they could not live in cities) are now more and more in parks. I am referring especially to wild ducks! Not only are there many ducks in the lakes in the parks but they are not scared by the proximity of people.

Any walk in a park now turns into bird watching. Very convenient for city dwellers. But it's not just that, wild ducks really enjoy the presence of people (of course, because they feed them) and seek to come as close as possible.

In winter, when the lake freezes they are dependent on food provided by humans.

I could not miss the pleasure of photographing these birds, otherwise shy and scary and you can not get close in nature. I took advantage, I photographed and I was lucky and surprised by some strange effects of water.

This migration of birds to cities and areas inhabited by humans, as well as the migration of smaller or larger animals, from bears to squirrels is not a normal and desirable thing. It is, unfortunately, a sign that man is increasingly invading the areas where these animals live, consuming their food resources. Thus, birds and wild animals have to look for food as close to the cities as possible, especially as people throw away a lot of food.

One of the saddest sights is those with gulls are hundreds of kilometers away from the sea and looking for food at garbage dumps of large cities.