Muscovy Ducks, a Tortoiseshell Cat, and No One in Charge
Before the cat, there was already a flock.
Somewhere between seventeen and twenty-two Muscovy ducks, depending on the day. Sometimes they all arrived. Sometimes fewer. Ducks don’t announce absences, and they don’t apologize for them either.
They had a rhythm. Feeding happened around the same hour. Space mattered. Timing mattered. Disagreements followed rules that looked strange to outsiders but worked well enough for the birds. Most conflicts ended before they became physical, resolved through posture, circling, and long pauses.
Over time, certain ducks became unmistakable.
Blondie
Blondie was named after the character in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, because somehow he managed to be all three.
He was familiar and constant, showing up season after season. He was aggressive at feeding time, shoving through other ducks as if the food had always been his idea. And he had a jokester’s streak — stirring small amounts of chaos without ever quite tipping things over.
Blondie didn’t wait his turn. He took it.
The flock adjusted around him.
Flaco
Flaco arrived later.
When he first appeared, he was thinner, his feathers unsettled, like a bird who’d come through a rough patch elsewhere. He didn’t rush to challenge anyone. He watched first. Learned the order. Chose when to step in.
Flaco would take on any challenger if pressed, but he avoided unnecessary conflict. He preferred timing over spectacle. Over time, he filled out, his feathers smoothed, but the restraint remained.
Where Blondie pushed, Flaco measured. Together, they held a balance the flock seemed to understand.
The System Holds
Seasons shifted. Drakes grew more assertive. Hens nested. Predators took their share. Most chicks didn’t survive.
One season, almost none did.
Only one duckling made it through — the last, smaller at first, pushed aside more than once, but persistent. When the adults moved off and the food was gone, he stepped forward quietly with his mother, the way survival sometimes requires.
He grew stronger. Steadier. Unafraid.
He became known as 17.
As he matured, he found his place without forcing it. He wasn’t loud or dominant. He was calm around people, observant around other ducks, and fully present in the life of the flock.
The Cat Arrives Late
Only after all of this did a tortoiseshell cat begin appearing at the edge of things.
She didn’t rush in. She watched.
The ducks noticed her immediately and adjusted their spacing. The cat behaved like a cat — curious, still, far too interested in everyone else’s business. Occasionally she startled a hen into flight, more mischief than threat, never following through.
Her nosiness earned her a name: Mrs. Kravitz, after the famously watchful neighbor from Bewitched — always convinced something was happening next door.
17 and Mrs. Kravitz
Of all the ducks, 17 was the least concerned by the cat.
One day, he approached her deliberately, passing the human presence as if to include him in the moment. His beak opened and closed lightly, silently — a small performance, offered not to the cat but to the human, as if to say watch this.
Then he pecked her.
Not hard. Just enough.
The cat startled — a quick, surprised recoil — but she didn’t run, didn’t strike, didn’t escalate. And that’s when 17 did something unmistakable: he jerked his head back, beak open, body loose, the motion so perfectly timed and expressive it could only be read one way.
He looked like he was laughing.
No sound. Just satisfaction.
Then he stepped back into the flock as if nothing at all had happened.
An understanding had been reached.
The Quiet Thinning
As the season turned, attendance shifted. Some days fewer ducks arrived. Then fewer still.
17 was there through most of it. Fully grown now. Still calm. Still counted.
And then one day, he wasn’t there.
No sign. No disturbance. Just absence.
The flock adjusted. Blondie pushed through as usual. Flaco took his vantage when needed. The rhythm continued.
Mrs. Kravitz noticed.
She watched the younger ducks more closely after that. She startled less. Observed more. Blondie ignored her completely — his version of acceptance. Flaco kept one eye on her when things tightened, out of habit rather than concern.
She never joined the flock.
But she became part of the hour.
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