Show Duck

15 Nov 2005

H & I hadn't been to The Show for a year or two, so this year we gave it another whirl.

The Show is a funny thing in my book. With its history firmly rooted in argiculture, yet the modern and young crowd flock to the fun-fair & amusement-rides, I'm not sure what it wants to be. You find an amazing and strange mix; farm animals, hulking great combine-harvesters, cars, wood-chopping, flower-shows, prize winning guinea-pigs, dogs and cats, and then everything from the big-wheel to the vomitron, but wait, there's more... the latest and greatest as-seen-on-TV/infomercial presentations also. It's a 10 day microcosm of the weird, the wonderful, the necessary, the unnecessary, all with candy-floss. What the fuck!?

Anyway, we walked by one pavilion and H remembered it was where all the birds were, something as a kid they'd always check out. I used to be a bit of a bird fancier in my day (ornithologically speaking of course) so we ducked (pun intended) in. - First we noticed the noise and the smell. Hundreds, possibly thousands of cages holding a cacophony of birds in a massive warehouse. Then there was the stressed animals, who after a week of being couped up in the bedlam, and being judged as a pass or a fail were certainly 'over it' and wanted out.

But there were some specacular birds. Fancy cocks and their harem of chickens, exotic geese and large mallards, and then our personal favourite; very long, very tall and skinny Indian Running Ducks. - So we walked down one long line of double-story cages and oh'd and awah'd at the birds. By the mid-point of the next long line of cages I was starting to feel as trapped as the birds, and looking down the length of a third line I decided it was time to get the flock out of there. We fast-walked past the birds in their cages, and headed straight for the exit when this one duck poked his head out between the bars of his cage and almost seemed to ask where we were going? He just sat there, inspecting us. Patiently waiting.

I whipped out my camera and grabbed the shot. Still he waited. I looked at him, said goodbye, and flew out of there just a little freaked out.

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