young ducks
May. 20th, 2005 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellenkushnerIt's early autumn. My heroine has been sent to the country, to a place that sure sounds like Normandy to me (lots of apple trees & streams & fields). Here's what I wrote a long time ago:
So I followed the stream into the woods instead, and found a little waterfall and a blackberry thicket with plenty of berries left, and a nest of young ducks (? well something more seasonal anyway).
Are ducks still young in early autumn? I just liked the way the words sounded, and the image - but if I'm about to make a fool of myself to people who know about ducks, can you suggest something else?
(NO ONE in my very erudite writer's group has taken up the challenge - various copies of the page have remained suspiciously pristine, despite my piteous little note in the text. I mean, if they knew the ducks were all right they would have said so, right??)
So I followed the stream into the woods instead, and found a little waterfall and a blackberry thicket with plenty of berries left, and a nest of young ducks (? well something more seasonal anyway).
Are ducks still young in early autumn? I just liked the way the words sounded, and the image - but if I'm about to make a fool of myself to people who know about ducks, can you suggest something else?
(NO ONE in my very erudite writer's group has taken up the challenge - various copies of the page have remained suspiciously pristine, despite my piteous little note in the text. I mean, if they knew the ducks were all right they would have said so, right??)
no subject
Date: 2005-05-20 04:11 pm (UTC)You could probably get away with "young ducks" if you didn't mean ducklings and dumped them out of the nest. They could be a late brood (or whatever it's called) of young ducks, not quite old enough to have developed their sexually distinguishing plumage, and she can only tell the males by their curling tailfeathers? ah ha ha ha ha the things you learn while punting
no subject
Date: 2005-05-20 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-20 04:38 pm (UTC)There is punting in Denver
no subject
Date: 2005-05-20 04:44 pm (UTC)So you're saying it's fun as well as educational?
(And what should I do in Denver? My heroine, she is in Elysi - I mean, not-quite-Normandy.
Perchance she'll see a DUCK; what think you?)
no subject
Date: 2005-05-20 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-21 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 01:48 am (UTC)