Pilling’s Pond
This was a Facebook post yesterday because it’s just personal and kind of chit-chatty, but actually the subject matter is of broader interest so what the hell, I’m reposting it here. Everybody should know about Chuck Pilling.
For a few years in the late 80s and early 90s I lived in north Seattle, and in my neighborhood lived a guy I knew of from working at the zoo, a self-taught bird man, who had a pond with all kinds of ducks on his property. It was about a 20 minute walk from me and I went there often to admire the ducks and the world he’d made for them. Then I moved, and that was that.
Today I took Cooper out exploring as usual, and ended up in my old nabe, at a tiny but mighty park called Licton Springs…which got me thinking about the bird man, and trying to remember his last name, which I couldn’t do. Chuck _____?? And I wasn’t sure exactly where the pond had been. He was a geezer in the 80s so I knew he wouldn’t be around still, but I thought maybe I’d read somewhere that his place was still there. I thought I would try Googling later, so we went back to Cooper’s car and I went toward that general area just in case, and at a corner where I thought it might be there was a great concrete emptiness in front of a huge new building…but then beyond the emptiness was a massive solid wall of trees and bamboo and I yelled “I think that’s it!” So I parked (and left Cooper, who was tired), and hustled down the block – the new building is a primary school – and the closer I got to the wall of trees the more I thought I recognized it, and I passed the wall of trees and there was a pond and an outbuilding and THE DUCKS.
IT IS STILL THERE.
I can’t explain how happy that made me, but it did.There’s an information graphic now, explaining the whole history. Chuck Pilling was the FIRST to breed hooded mergansers in captivity, also two other ducks. He got awards for it. He was a legend. He helped design the waterfowl exhibit at the zoo (which is a very fine one). I got teary as hell reading it.
The infographic that made me want to blub:
That’s a great story. His legacy lives on …
A nearby PCC Market (Puget Consumers Co-op) has been providing the ducks with lettuce trimmings in mass quantities for decades. It’s the bulk of their diet.
I saw this post on Facebook and really wanted to add a comment or at least a “like”, but since I’m still on the naughty bench for “hate speech” according to the Facebook censors, I couldn’t. So I’m happy that I get to add it here!
This is a wonderful story, and it really made me smile. I’m SO glad that there is an information graphic there, to explain it! Chuck Pilling would have been pleased, I’m sure. Adding this to the list of things to visit in Seattle.
We have Hooded Mergansers here, too :
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50875987912_9c38216db8_b.jpg
Great story, beautiful place. I’m glad you had the spontaneous brain wave to go find it.
Good story, I’m glad the pond is still there.
When I was a kid, we lived for a while in a rented place with a huge set of gardens and an orchard. The place was basically falling down, which is why we were able to afford it (the people who bought it after we moved out completely renovated it and it sold a decade or so ago for around £2.5m). Condensation would freeze on the inside of the windows in the winter. It was an amazing place, but was slowly ruining my mother’s health, which is why we had to leave.
Anyway, while we were there, my mother decided we would have some hens. Good idea, free eggs and nice to have them around the place. This quickly grew, at peak, to about forty of assorted varieties. Then she thought it might be a good idea to have some geese. Naturally I had to dig the pond for these geese, mostly by myself. It took an entire summer holiday, it was quite large. So we had geese. Nine. And since we had geese, naturally(!) we had to have ducks as well. So we ended up with around 20 of those.
I sound like I’m complaining, and I’m not. I loved having them around and the eggs (and meat from the occasional cockerel who wouldn’t stop fighting the others) were vital. The ridiculous part was when we moved to an ex council semi… And took the remaining four geese and dozen hens with us. They lived in a shed in the back garden and had quite a big (by today’s standards) front garden to run around in all day, shouting at everyone, and a river at the bottom of the garden. Amazingly, we never had any complaints about the noise, although that might be because most people were too scared of the geese to come into the garden.
Or, maybe they too liked them.