Yesterday, we found that one of the huge beefsteak tomatoes in the fruit bowl had collapsed. It sat in a pool of juice, with a large split around its circumference. I suspected heatstroke, but could not be bothered with the mess and gore of a proper post mortem. We agreed that it would make a tasty and entertaining snack for Dick van Duck, and put it to one side in a separate bowl.
Breakfast time came, and Dick was wide-awake and raring to go. As he cannot manage the stairs, I carried him up to the roof terrace, where Geoff had laid out our breakfast. It was all looking quite idyllic. The Dog of the Blog lay on her piece of Astroturf, gnawing on her tooth-cleaning chew. The sun was lighting up the hills to the right of the valley, the pretty blue plumbago flowers mirrored the clear blue sky.
Then the carnage started. I put Dick on the floor and placed the tomato in front of him. He pounced with all the ferocity and concentration of a tiger disembowelling something furry and vulnerable. He muttered and honked with concentration as he grabbed at the soft flesh, shaking it vigorously and spattering the walls, the floor, our legs and himself with gory red pulp.
He shook his victim. He stamped on his victim. He drowned it in his water dish. His beautiful sleek chest was smeared and splashed blood red, and a torn piece of flesh clung to the fluff between his shoulder blades. A peaceful petit déjeuner à deux in the sunshine had turned into a hastily consumed bowl of cornflakes in an outdoor abattoir.
Once the feeding frenzy had calmed a little, we sat drinking our tea, listening to Dick’s muted honkings, a running commentary on what he was doing.
“Nom nom nom! This is a very nice tomato”
“I’ll just try stamping on this bit, while I have a drink”
“Better wash the pulp out of my nostrils”
“Oh, mustn’t forget to rip the flowers off that fuchsia”
“A nice bit of compost should bring out the flavour”
I remarked to Geoff that Dick sounded like a mad professor, muttering to himself as he invented something, and thought nothing more of it until later, when I was cleaning out Dick’s cat litter and scrubbing the food paste off his feed bowls.
It suddenly occurred to me that I had made an assumption. What is more, I had piled a stereotype on top of the assumption, layered it with an unhealthy dollop of unconscious sexism, and served it all up on a crisp base of anthropomorphism.
Basil. No longer with us, and sadly missed.
We have no way of knowing whether Dick van Duck is a duck or a drake. By the time I had found out that one can upend a duckling and peer at its nether regions to sex it, Dick was far too large, far too heavily feathered, and not at all inclined to put up with this indignity. I had thought that white ducks were probably the same as macaws, with no obvious sexual dimorphism. Basil, who died before we came to Spain, had been ‘he’ for fifteen years before he started laying eggs. Friends were amused to hear that Basil was actually Basilia, and laughed at us when we said things like “Who’s a clever boy then? Did he lay a lovely egg during the night?” (Actually, Basil was not that clever. He would roll the egg around the floor in a rather baffled fashion, not knowing quite what to do with it. On the rare occasion that he tried to sit an egg, he would struggle to position himself, and then watch with astonishment as the egg popped out from under him, like a tiddly wink. But I digress.)
Having made the assumption that Dick is a drake, I automatically observe his behaviour through blue-tinted spectacles. What would have been my take on the morning’s proceedings if Dick had been Dora?
…Then the cookery course began. I put Dora on the floor and placed the tomato in front of her. She scratched her head as she pondered what delight she could make with this luscious, juicy ingredient. She muttered and honked with concentration as she struggled to handle the gargantuan fruit, spattering the walls, the floor, our legs and herself in her efforts to chop it up.
She stamped on the pulp to tenderise it. She added it to her water bowl and trampled it into gazpacho. Her beautiful sleek chest was splashed with red, and a small smut somehow lodged between her shoulder blades. We munched our cornflakes like a pair of guests watching the chef in Saturday Kitchen.
As we sipped our tea, we listened to her muted honkings, a running commentary on what she was doing.
“Oh my word! This is a very nice tomato”
“Shame I haven’t got any basil to put with it”
“Should have worn a pinny”
“Maybe a dash of compost for flavour, and a pretty fuchsia garnish.”
I remarked to Geoff that Dora sounded like a ducky Mrs Bridges, muttering to herself as she bustled about her below stairs kitchen …
My reverie ground to a halt as I concluded that I had fallen into a dirty laundry pile of assumptions and stereotypes. Why should a professor be male, and a cook female? Why should Dick’s feeding frenzy be carnage, while Dora’s is adorably domesticated? Why do I find Dick’s frantic scrabblings and lack of coordination evidence that he is probably a boy? Why do his cheerful untidiness and mess seem to confirm my suspicions that he is not a girl?
A not very cutesy animal!
Click here for a mind-boggling list of anthropomorphic animal super-heroes. I could spend many happy hours investigating some of them!
It is quite possible that there are sexual stereotypes that do apply to ducks, or they might just all be much the same as each other – messy, enthusiastic, talkative, feathered and ducky.
I am not a fan of cutesy photographs with adorable captions. I like to think that I walk the fine line between general benevolence towards animals and being totally bonkers with dignity and poise. Today I had to admit to myself that I had fallen foul (no pun intended) of one of the many opportunities for making a twit of oneself when attributing human qualities to animals.