A male mallard duck jumps from a short wall to join his mate on the sidewalk at Grayfox Drive near Vista Valle Drive. (photos by John Gregory)
Mallard ducks seen quacking up
A male and female pair of mallard ducks were spotted in the neighborhood where Grayfox Drive meets Vista Valle Drive on Tuesday afternoon, May 1, at 2 p.m. This friendly couple leapt from a short wall in a resident’s yard and began walking into the street before slowly returning to the sidewalk.
Fortunately, these wayward fowl took off before after-school traffic from nearby Miramar Ranch Elementary School began to flood the road with noisy vehicles.
One might wonder if these fine feathered friends were disoriented by a lack of bread crumbs in their diet due to a recent unofficial decree on social media banning humans from feeding bread to ducks at Evan’s Pond near the library for the sake of the birds’ health. But this is not likely, since ducks occasionally land or waddle into the neighborhood, possibly coming from the pond or Lake Miramar, a few blocks to the north. Ducks have been seen in the area before, and entire families of the fowl have been known to slowly cross Red Cedar Drive near the school crosswalk during early morning student drop-off.
