Monday, December 8, 2008

Duckhead

I was walking through Bethesda Place Plaza over the metro station today and saw a duck head lying in a corner. I had to look at it a couple of times to be sure about what it was, and no, I didn't take a picture, nor do I plan to. But it did get me wondering about how it got there without it's body, I've never seen ducks in the plaza, and with the fountains off, there doesn't seem to be anything to attract them. I couldn't come up with a single plausible scenario about how it got there, but I did come up with several implausible ones.
  • Someone is walking into work and reaches into their bag for keys. On getting the duck head instead they say "Oh, so that's where it went" then they toss it on the ground.
  • Someone sees a duck in the plaza and rips its head off, keeping the body (as a souvenir? to cook and eat?) And again, I haven't seen ducks there before.
  • A duck is in the plaza and some duck-predator catches it and eats it. But how many duck-predators live in downtown Bethesda? and if there are any, are they big enough to take off with the body? I could see a cat catching a duck, but not removing the body.
  • A duck is flying and hits one of the buildings, the dead bird falls to the ground. This actually seems most likely, but I'm still left with the messy detail about where the body went.
Any ideas?

[where: Bethesda, MD]

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