Secretive

   During the past month or so I've noticed that the Mallards who live around Stow Lake have been spending time in places that I don't recall having seen them. I surmise that it must be about the time when their chicks will soon be born, but I don't recall from previous years them behaving in a way that appears secretive.

   Of course, I  may just be noticing things a bit more closely now. I  may also be viewing their behavior through my my own paranoia.

   Often, when I am rounding a corner of the usual path that I  traverse during my morning walks, I come two or more of them wandering around in the bushes and thickets near the water. If I should stop when I see them, even if only for a moment, they begin to quickly move around and call out. I imagine that there is a nest somewhere near to them, at least at some of these times, but I never see anything there.
   I would think that at least one would stay behind to protect the eggs if one were there, and I am quiet, still and stay from where I spot them. Perhaps these are the very things that they find frightening.
   I'm perplexed that these Mallards should be so concerned that a species and person such as myself should see where their eggs are hidden. It actually saddens me.

   Last year, I saw one of these animals sitting on an abandoned egg on top of a large mound of rubble completely out in the open here. It touched me, as it must have been mourning this cold specimen, but why would that egg have been laid there in the first place, so inconspicuously, while they seem so bent on hiding things now?

   It just seems like they are up to something.
   Although not a gossip, and being a person that very much values a kind of mystery, I wish that those Mallards would trust me to know their secrets, what they're doing there, in those tucked away places.
   It's not that I want to be in on their secrets. It's just to know that they see in me one that appreciates them fully as they are.