I had the experience recently—extremely rare—of being under a spell. It happened this way.

I had gone out walking in late afternoon along Hurricane Creek, a small stream running through parkland and behind housing developments in our small town. The legend is that the creek was named for a windstorm in pioneer days, but this may be false etymology. Roaring Run, another fast-running creek, is described in an early document at “the hurricane.”

A city “greenway” trail follows Hurricane Creek from a parking lot, past tennis courts and softball fields. It then plunges into woods briefly, before emerging beside a retaining pond with a view of distant homes. Then it takes another turn through trees, meets the creek again, and ends a few yards further on at a school. I have walked it many times—from the parking lot to the school and back takes just 40 minutes.

On this summer afternoon I was alone on the trail. The creek had flooded recently and the usual walkers and cyclists hadn’t yet returned in force. At the last stretch of stream before the school, nine ducks were feeding in a line along a barely submerged sandbar. I stopped still on the trail and regarded the scene.

The stream was perhaps 15 feet across, bordered on the far side by a dark patch of trees. Trees behind me cut off the view in that direction. The ducks, in their mystic number, floated in the shallows or stood exposed in the slight wash of water over the bar. Ducks are much larger birds than we usually notice. Paddling in a stream, their bodies are mostly submerged, but standing on the bar, these still seemed surprisingly plump, with swelling breast feathers modeled in painterly fashion by the muted light. As they poked at the bar, it occurred to me that the recent flood must have been good for them, dislodging all sorts of edibles. No wonder they were fat!

It also struck me that there was something odd about the scene. It was too ordered and the light too perfect. I had never seen this many ducks, of the same size, stationed in a line along this stretch of river. The day held its breath. In the far distance a car moved silently along a hidden road, like a continuity violation in an old film. What would happen next?

Nothing dramatic, certainly. After a few minutes, five ducks broke away from one end of the line and floated downstream out of sight. A few minutes later they returned and joined the line again. After a while, a duck at the farther end paddled off upstream for 15 or 20 feet, and all but two of the others gradually segued after him. The two dawdlers continued feeding at the lower end of the bar, until—perhaps realizing they were alone—they too paddled off to rejoin the line.

Two bicyclists burst out of the woods and whizzed by me, disturbing the ducks not at all. But whatever spell there had been began to ebb. These were simply ducks, feeding along a half-submerged sandbar. I turned and walked back down the trail to my car in the parking lot.

I guessed that I had spent half an hour watching the ducks. I know, from experience in Zen sitting, that I tend to underestimate the passage of time. But half an hour seemed reasonable. When I reached the car, I checked my watch. Forty-five minutes had passed since I left it—just five minutes more than my usual time on the trail.