After days of rain and a house finally quiet, I followed the thread of a maybe — a single Pink-eared Duck, last seen before the storm. The saltmarsh by the airport felt like the wrong place to look for wonder: overgrown, collapsing, edged by tourists and concrete. And yet. There, behind a green bush in a shallow pond, something waited. Not rare, not triumphant — just quietly, beautifully still. This is the story of what I saw, what I almost missed, and the soft, stubborn hope