Ducks. I remember the first pet, a small black duckling, I took to my father’s company picnic for the best pet contest. I received a blue participant ribbon. Ducks are always fun to watch while feeding them bread at the local pond, listening to their quacking. The ducks here are the same, large flocks of shovelers numbering over a hundred with a sprinkling of Teals congregating in a pond on Victory Base Complex near Baghdad, Iraq. The shovelers with large flatten bills and colorful feathers fly over the pond in large waves weaving in and around the pond landing at one end or the other. 
Teals with silvery feathers remind me of salmon with shiny silver scales. Pochard ducks with chestnut colored heads, bright red eyes and light silver bodies swimming from one end of the lake to the other in between the numerous coots surrounding them. 
Mallards are common here also. A family of them stayed year round at a small pond within the walls of Abu Ghraib prison. I hope they moved on as we did.
