Duck, duck, . . . what? A duck of a different color has appeared in New York City’s Central Park. And it’s turned New Yorkers and tourists into picture-snapping “quackarazzi.”
Since the Mandarin duck’s arrival, photographers gather daily in the park off Fifth Avenue. Crowds stand on shore hoping to catch a glimpse of the exotic bird with pink, purple, orange, and emerald green plumage. Admirer Joe Amato compares the bird to “a living box of crayons.” He shows up almost daily, with his expensive camera equipment.
Bird lovers and sightseers have documented the bird’s every move on social media. They note its gentle glides across the water and its sniping at the “ordinary” mallards. New York’s latest celebrity rarely disappoints—the feathery showboat preens its wings in the shadow of the historic Plaza Hotel as gawkers jostle for a better view.
Leesa Beckmann commuted two and a half hours from her home in New Jersey to see the duck. Her 90-year-old mother has been talking about the bird since its arrival. “I’ve got to see this magnificent duck,” Beckmann says. She plans to shoot and frame photos for her mother to hang on the wall.
But Paul Sweet, who oversees bird specimens at the American Museum of Natural History, isn’t impressed. Sweet says there’s nothing special about a Mandarin in Central Park. He notes that such ducks are often imported from Asia for use on private property, and sometimes they escape into the wild. Big deal.
“A lot of non-birders tend to see gaudy birds as more beautiful,” Sweet says. “But to me it’s no more beautiful than, say, a sparrow”—a bird God has His eye on too. (Matthew 10:29) Beauty is definitely in the eyes of the New York beholders.
(A Mandarin duck, right, swims in Central Park in New York City. AP Photo)
