young ducks

[ellenkushner]

It'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??)

Comments

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

You haven't lived.

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?)

[ewein2412]

QUAAAAAACK [spluttering]