In the mornings, I sit at my desk and read my favorite news sites. (We have no television.) Out the window to my left I can see the pond, the trees, the hillsides.

As much as I hate this time of year, there is one pleasure I have as I look out the window.

The wood duck.

Now, wood ducks are not as big and graceful as white ducks. No, wood ducks are quirky, strutting along the waters with the "jive talking" neck motions going - looking very much like Bert on Sesame Street "doing the 'rr rr' pigeon."

Wood ducks don't paddle around on the top of the water all the time either. They swim beneath the waters, eating algae and greens from along the bottom. So, they're there, and then they're not, then they pop up over here, and then they're gone again.

The ducks have long since given up on raising young on the lake. Why?

Turtles.

Snapping turtles here in West Virginia get quite large. One year, while digging a drainage ditch, Frank pulled one out of the mud that was 14" across the shell. We put a metal wash tub upside down over it to transfer it to the creek later, and when we came back, the turtle - wash tub and all - was halfway across the field.

So, needless to say, mated wood ducks come and go, but for most of the year, we have the one.

He, most often, stays on the other side of the island, where we can't see him. He nests in a willow that was blown over in a storm but did not die - now growing cockeyed off the island bank with branches spread low along the water.

But in spring? He comes to this side of the water to strut, swim and eat.

Alone on the surface, it appears he has the whole lake to himself.

Yesterday, Frank and I were checking weatherchannel.com, and watching the duck. Strut, swim, appear, disappear, all looking so fun and carefree.

"Uh-oh," said Frank.

"Oh, man," I said.

Bubbles. Bubbles on the surface nearby.

(For you city-folk, this is the telltale sign of a turtle below.)

But the duck kept strutting, swimming, diving. . .

And then there was a swirl in the waters, and a splash, and ripples,

and then the duck appeared again.

Did he squawk? No.
Fly away? No.
Go pinwheeling back to his side of the island? No.

He just casually strutted off, leaving this side behind him, headed to the shallows on the other side.

He had beaten death, and seemed rather smug about it.

I guess he was too big for that turtle to take down to the deep.

Let's hope that's the biggest turtle in the pond.