As you may have noticed in my brief ‘conversion’ account, I have preternatural numbers of providential interactions with my Father. Fathers enjoy giving their children unsolicited gifts sometimes and delighting them with surprises (and maybe others, vicariously 
). The mandarin duck is one such and the reason for my choice of my profile photo.
There’s a co-instants account involved of when I saw one in the wild on a gray and chilly day in November of ‘04, swimming in the weir pool of the disused Werdinsel mill on the Limmat River in Zürich, Switzerland… the timing of it was startling, my being then and where! (It wasn’t that green. )
Some aren’t exactly fun, if you saw my kidney account, but they are all good!