Maybe a Nice Ratatouille

I actually like walking my dogs in the morning. I like the quiet, and calm of the early dawn, and quite often we get to see wildlife that we don't normally see. Yesterday, halfway around the block, Chandler and I were coming up on the large lot where he loves to stalk squirrels. This morning, however, it wasn't the squirrels that were running across my neighbor's large expanse of lawn. It was my neighbor. I was startled to see two large Muscovy ducks run across the street in front of us, followed closely by my neighbor hollering at the top of his lungs.

I understand his frustration. Muscovy ducks were imported here a hundred years ago from South America, they aren't native. When I first moved here I was amazed at the large flightless birds that would waddle around most neighborhoods, standing in the middle of the street as if they owned it. They can't fly, they poop all over your driveway and lawn, they are just all around dirty birds. What they do have going for themselves apparently, is that they are good eating. Now I'm not going to go down the street and catch one of these things, kill it, pluck it, and gut it for Mark to prepare. However, I have noticed one thing over the years. Since we have had a large influx of Haitian boat people over the last twenty years, the number of Muscovy ducks roaming the neighborhoods has greatly diminished. I have no problem with that, I only wish the boat people would develop a taste for some of our other pests.