How I saved nine ducklings

I photograph ducks for a hobby and go to the park most days.

On Saturday June 26 I went with a videocamera to try something new. I heard the distinctive quacking of a female mallard in the wooded distance and headed that way, just past a little footbridge. I thought it would make interesting footage.

She was standing on the edge of a well about 6' deep, and as my eyes trailed down into the well I cried out, "Oh my God!". You can hear my cry on the video I made, which is too long to show on Connex, but some photographs follow of what happened.

Down in the well were nine tiny ducklings, newly hatched, huddled together for warmth.

One of them was jumping up and into the solid concrete wall of the well, as though trying to get out. I felt total despair. It was about 7 p.m. and nobody was about.

The mother duck hopped down into the well and tended to her babies.

Then she flew up back on the ledge, looking down.There was nothing she could do.

Beside the well was a stream flowing into a pond where many other ducks live. That pond was where she and her babies needed to be.

She jumped down into the well again, and I thought, it's up to me.

I put my cameras down on the sodden ground and lowered myself into the well. I wasn't thinking how I was going to get back out again.

I approached Mama Duck and we danced around each other for a bit. She watched me carefully, her eyes never leaving me for a second.

When I came closer to her, on my knees to be less threatening, she gave me a long, silent hiss and thrust her neck at me in a warning gesture.

I backed off a few inches. I talked softly to her. "Let me help you," I said. I recognized this duck. She had wintered in this park. How the babies got into the well, I have no idea, but they would die there in a few short hours without any food. The well was cold, dark and damp, a prison, a hellish place for a baby duck.

Then Mama Duck flew up to the ridge of the well, on the side adjacent to the stream. She looked at me. She was giving me permission to go ahead.

In the migratory seasons I help rescue songbirds that have collided with glass towers in Toronto's downtown core, so I know how dangerous rescue work can be. Birds are fragile and easily damaged, or even killed, by people with the best of intentions.

I tried to catch hold of a duckling but he fell out of my hands a few inches down onto the hard cement floor. He got up, shook his little wings in aggravation, and stormed off.

I was going to have get better at this.

I reached out for another duckling. This one, I got. I cupped his little body, no larger than an egg, into my hands, careful not to touch him, but not to let him escape.

What was it like for him, on that long ride in my hands up, up, up the giant wall of the well? What was he expecting to find on the other side?

Certainly not water, for when I got him up there and released him into the stream he seemed absolutely shocked. I think he had been preparing for the worst. But there was his mommy, waiting for him on the water.

Eight more to go, tiny little fuzzballs, chirping like mad and running in circles away from the monster in the well who had taken their brother away.

But I was confident now. I got one after the other, cupping them carefully in my fingers, lifting them up and releasing them into the water. There were soon seven ducklings and Mama waiting in the stream, huddled together on the water, quiet, so very quiet.

And then Mama Duck got impatient, or wanted the sunlight, and she swam under the footbridge into the pond. But I had two more ducklings to rescue!

Just then a man came by, holding a Starbucks cup. He had a kindly face and I looked at him helplessly. "I am trying to get these babies out of the well," I said. "Can you help me?"

Without hesitation he put down his cup and slid down into the well with me. Together we began chasing ducklings. He would shoo them towards me, and I would scoop them up. Or that was the plan.

But the two remaining ducklings were the feistiest ones of all. They ran me ragged. I fell on my backside several times, getting soaked on the cold grimy wet cement floor. The man encouraged me on.

Now, when I got hold of each of them, I not only had to put them in the stream, I had to call their mother to come get them. "Mama!" I cried out as I put duckling number eight in the stream.

"Quack!" she answered from across the footbridge, well out of my sight. The duckling heard her call and swam towards her.

Then one more to go. Terrified little baby, running like mad away from me. When I finally caught him, and released him into the stream, Mama Duck was out of sight, and earshot. So the gentleman in the well with me grabbed a branch from the ground and steered the duckling towards the tunnel leading to the pond. The duckling needed no further prodding to find his mom.

I was soaking wet but exhilarated. The man helped me get out of the well by forming a step with his clasped hands. He was able to climb out after me, on his own.

Together we walked to the pond. Sunshine flooded over the water there, and all across the banks of the pond we could see nine little ducklings, scampering for little bugs and grasses, all the really good stuff to eat. The sunshine was thrilling to them. They had resumed chirping, but this time their chirping was full of excitement. They were tumbling over one another in their joy.

My knight in shining armour said, "It feels good, doesn't it"? We watched Mama Duck swim after her ducklings, who were loving the sun, the water, the freedom, each other.

The gentleman bid me farewell and went on his way, and I sat down on the bank of the pond and through tears of joy recited prayers for this little family.

I wished them a long and happy life.


Afterword

I saw the family last Saturday. They had moved from the pond to a little stream in a very secure area of the park. They were happy and healthy. And I think, I honestly think, that they remembered me.