Sometimes it’s easy to miss the obvious.

As I wandered around the countryside these past few weeks, I enjoyed viewing the wildlife activity around the ponds and sloughs. Typically there were a few ducks paddling on the water, some birds flying around the cattails and, if I waited a while, a muskrat often appeared from nowhere swimming aimlessly. Beautiful and peaceful.

Now I like to think I am a reasonably observant person and I have taken tests that confirmed this. I reinforced this belief by noticing the variety of birds by the water, particularly ducks. I also observed note of some of their behaviours, which helped me to photograph them.

However, only after considerable time had passed did I finally notice the main event. These sloughs were a hotbed for love! Of course once I caught on it, the ducks were suddenly all hanging out in pairs and seemed genuinely fond of each other. Who knew?

After I was struck by this epiphany, I made a mental note that perhaps my powers of observation need a little work in the whole romantic field. Hard to believe!