Duckling Whisperer

[Martin Hash]

I have a history with ducklings; my property occasionally fills with water due to an extra rainy season, and ducks find refuge in my flooded hedge maze to raise a family. When that happens, I surreptitiously sneak up on them to try and get pictures and videos. My wife, Gwynne, is not a big fan of me stalking the baby ducks, but I find them too fascinating to leave alone. Because flooding is a rarity, we haven’t had any nesting ducks in the past half dozen years, but we have seen mating pairs in our 2.5 acre yard; a drab spotted brown female, and a brightly-colored male wondering around together.

It’s spring; in the Pacific Northwest, the rule of thumb is that your garden should be in by Mother’s Day. Gwynne had one day left, and was trying to get the vegetable seeds put in her raised planters. I helped a little, going to get a hose to water them was one of my jobs. As I walked by the stack of ladders I keep stored behind the garage, I was startled by a momma duck causing a commotion nearby, even going so far as to pretend she had a broken wing. I could see a clutch of baby ducklings by the ladders, not more than a couple days old; they were cheeping up a storm. I wanted to get a picture but I knew Gwynne would probably chastise me for harassing the baby ducks, so I skirted around them; Momma Duck and babies scuttled off into the dense foliage, the cheeping out of earshot. However, I could still barely make out a weak cheep from somewhere nearer; it was coming from the ladders.

I couldn’t help myself; checking to see that Gwynne wasn’t watching, I crept over to where I heard the noise; it seemed to be coming out of the ladders lying on the ground against the wall; I didn’t want to move anything for fear a little duckling was trapped inside somewhere. While I had my head close to the ground, trying to see among the ladders, it seemed to me the cheeping was coming right below my ear? I looked down; there was an open drain, the cap broken off by ice. The cheeping was coming for there; I peered inside, and at the bottom I could just make out the tiny head, beak and fuzzy yellow body of a baby duck; it was feverishly cheeping. I looked around, and could see the momma and brood waiting safely far away, but attentive to what I was doing; I knew in that instant that I had to rescue the baby duckling.

First, I had to tell Gwynne. I walked over to where she was working, turned on the hose, and nonchalantly mentioned that there was a baby duck stuck in the drain. She looked over at me.
‘What?” She asked, confused.
“There’s a baby duckling stuck in the foundation drain inlet by the mower shed,” I told her calmly, not wanting to sound too anxious.
“Stuck in the drain!” She exclaimed. “Did you get it out?”
“Can I?” I asked, as if surprised she would ask that of me, the serial baby duck molester.
“Why didn’t you?” She asked, caught in my trap.
“My hand is too big,” I told her, matter-of-factly.
Gwynne rushed over to where I was pointing, and looked down into the pipe; her eyebrows went up in alarm.
“We’ve got to save the baby duck!” She told me.
Jackpot.
After the next hour of planning, digging, and various failed attempts, Gwynne was eventually able to reach her small hand far enough down to lift out the baby duckling and hand it to me.
Jackpot again; I was holding the apple of my eye, a baby duck. Hahaha.
“Where’s the momma?” Gwynne asked.
“Under those bushes,” I told her. “If I let the baby duck go over there, she’ll come collect it."
So I did, and Momma Duck got her baby back. We watched for the next half hour as the troop wandered around under the trees, the littler-trapped duck tagging along behind but seemingly okay. Gwynne was happy so I was happy, and when Gwynne told my mom the story of my duck whispering on our Mother’s Day call, she was happy too.

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