Another Sure Sign of Spring: Gay Mallards

About two blocks down in our lovely suburb, there lives a sort of crazy neighbor. They have a "sculpture" made of plywood and bowling balls in their front yard, about 50 bits of inflatable yard decor for each holiday, and each spring these folks set out a little hard-sided kiddie pool, perch a ramp up the side and wait for the ducks to arrive. Every year, two male mallards are the first to arrive. They spend their days hanging out under the bird feeders in the yard and swimming circles in the kiddie pool. A cute gay couple. (Ducks are exceedingly cute, aren't they?) Some mornings, we'll drive by on our way to work and observe about 6-8 male mallards hanging out together in the pool, clearly wrapping up a night of gay duckie drinking and debauchery. In all the years we've lived here, we've only ever seen males. Today, however, we saw a female mallard (see likeness above) perched on the side of the pool. Did one of our boys switch teams? Nope. There was a softball in the yard, so we naturally assumed she must be a visiting lesbian. Ah, spring.