She grabs police officer by pant leg to lead him to her brood trapped under grate Nicholas Read Vancouver Sun
Ray Peterson, Special to the Sun / Mother duck shows police officer where her ducklings fell through a grate into a sewer underneath the Granville Street Bridge.
Don't mention "bird brains" to Ray Petersen, because after what happened this week, he won't hear a word of it.
Petersen, a community police officer for Granville Downtown South, was walking in the 1500-block Granville Street (directly under the Granville Bridge) Wednesday morning when a duck came up and grabbed him by the pant leg. Then it started waddling around him and quacking.
"I thought it was a bit goofy, so I shoved it away," Petersen said in an interview.
But the duck, a female (he thinks it was a mallard), wasn't about to give up that easily. Making sure she still had Petersen's eye, she waddled up the road about 20 metres and lay on a storm sewer grate.
Petersen watched and thought nothing of it.
"But when I started walking again, she did the same thing. She ran around and grabbed me again."
It became obvious to him then that something was up.
So when she waddled off to the sewer grate a second time, Petersen decided to follow.
"I went up to where the duck was lying and saw eight little babies in the water below. They had fallen down between the grates."
So Petersen took action. He phoned police Sergeant Randy Kellens, who arrived at the scene and, in turn, got in touch with two more constables.
"When they came down, the duck ran around them as well, quacking. Then she lay down on the grate," Petersen said.
While Kellens looked over into the grate, the duck sat on the curb and watched.
Then the two constables, John Schilling and Allison Hill, marshalled a tow truck that lifted the grate out of position, allowing the eight ducklings to be rescued one by one with a vegetable strainer.
"While we were doing this, the mother duck just lay there and watched," Petersen says.
Once the ducklings were safe, however, she set about marching them down to False Creek, where they jumped into the water.
Kellens followed them to make sure they were all right, but elected to remain on shore.
The experience has changed Petersen's mind about ducks. He thinks they're a lot smarter than he used to.
And while he never ate duck before, he says he wouldn't dream of it now.
Something really amazing happened in Downtown Spokane this week and I had to share the story with you.
Some of you may know that my brother, Joel, is a loan officer at Sterling Bank. He works downtown in a second story office building, overlooking busy Riverside Avenue. Several weeks ago he watched a mother duck choose the cement awning outside his window as the uncanny place to build a nest above the sidewalk. The mallard laid nine eggs in a nest in the corner of the planter that is perched over 10 feet in the air. She dutifully kept the eggs warm for weeks and Monday afternoon all of her nine ducklings hatched.
Joel worried all night how the mamma duck was going to get those babies safely off their perch in a busy, downtown, urban environment to take to water, which typically happens in the first 48 hours of a duck hatching. Tuesday morning, Joel came to work and watched the mother duck encourage her babies to the edge of the perch with the intent to show them how to jump off!
The mother flew down below and started quacking to her babies above. In his disbelief Joel watched as the first fuzzy newborn toddled to the edge and astonishingly leapt into thin air, crashing onto the cement below. My brother couldn't watch how this might play out. He dashed out of his office and ran down the stairs the sidewalk where the first obedient duckling was stuporing near its mother from the near fatal fall.
Joel looked up. The second duckling was getting ready to jump! He quickly dodged under the awning while the mother duck quacked at him and the babies above. As the second one took the plunge, Joel jumped forward and caught it with his bare hands before it hit the cement. Safe and sound, he set it by the mamma and the other stunned sibling, still recovering from its painful leap.
One by one the babies continued to jump to join their anxious family below. Each time Joel hid under the awning just to reach out in the nick of time as the duckling made its free fall. The downtown sidewalk came to a standstill. Time after time, Joel was able to catch the remaining 7 and set them by their approving mother.
At this point Joel realized the duck family had only made part of its dangerous journey. They had 2 full blocks to walk across traffic, crosswalks, curbs, and pedestrians to get to the closest open water, the Spokane River.
The onlooking office secretaries then joined in, and hurriedly brought an empty copy paper box to collect the babies. They carefully corralled them, with the mother's approval, and loaded them up into the white cardboard container. Joel held the box low enough for the mom to see her brood. He then slowly navigated through the downtown streets toward the Spokane River, as the mother waddled behind and kept her babies in sight.
As they reached the river, the mother took over and passed him, jumping into the river and quacking loudly. At the water's edge, the Sterling Bank office staff then tipped the box and helped shepherd the babies toward the water and to their mother after their adventurous ride.
All nine darling ducklings safely made it into the water and paddled up snugly to mamma duck. Joel said the mom swam in circles, looking back toward the beaming bank workers, and proudly quacking as if to say, 'See, we did it! Thanks for all the help!
"Tell me, does it move you, Does it soothe you, Does it fill your heart and soul with the roots of rock & roll? When you can't get through it you can listen to it with a 'na na na na', Well I've been there before" -"Been There Before" by Hanson
great stories!
