Campus ducks

I was walking yesterday morning from my car to my office when I realized I was being accompanied by a pair of ducks. They had emerged from some underbrush beside the walkway, and our paths converged on the stairs leading up from the parking lot. Quacking amiably, they walked up the stairs beside me. At the top of the stairs, our paths diverged again.

What is this special affinity ducks have for university campuses? Every university I've ever spent any length of time at has had its share of campus ducks, who seem to like to hang out on expanses of concrete, unperturbed by the press of humans around them. Indeed, they are often like pushy New Yorkers, quacking irritably if you get in their way. In the aftermath of a rain storm, they can be found hanging out in the many puddles that dot the concrete, in spite of the fact that -- as was the case at York and is the case here at MUN -- there's a perfectly good pond right on campus. But they'd apparently hang out in the public areas of campus. I wouldn't be at all surprised to one day see a gaggle of them wearing Roots or the Gap, sitting on the steps of the student center smoking and reading.