This painting holds a cherished memory of a mother duck I met one spring day while walking my dog. The duck stood at the edge of a yard along the road, far from any pond or stream. A wild duck was completely out of place there and would normally have backed away, but she stood firm, even as we got closer. I knew something was wrong. At first, I wondered if she might be injured. I stopped. “Okay, you have my attention. What are you doing there?” I asked as we came closer. She stared at us and did not budge. I could feel her tension. I scanned the area around her, looking for possible explanations. Then I noticed the storm drain at the curb. The thought hit me. What if she had babies nearby? What if they had fallen through the grate? I took a few more steps toward her and listened. There it was. Faint chirping. I crossed the road and looked down through the grate. Tiny ducklings were huddled deep inside the storm drain, about six feet down. The mother duck had been standing there for a reason. Her babies were trapped, and she refused to leave them. I told her, “Don’t worry, mama. I’m going to help you. I’ll get your babies out of there. I promise I’ll be right back.”
First, I had to get my dog home and come up with a plan. I knew I could not lift that storm drain grate by myself. As luck would have it, there was a road-work crew nearby that had heavy equipment. I found the supervisor and told him there were baby ducks trapped in a drain about a half mile up the road. He agreed to help right away. I rushed home, dropped off my dog, and grabbed a few things I thought might help: a bucket with a handle, some rope, a rake, and a laundry basket. By the time I got back, the supervisor already had the grate off, but the ducklings were much too far down for us to reach. None of the things I had brought would work. A pool net seemed like our best chance, so I hurried off to borrow one from a neighbor.
The supervisor lay on the ground and slowly lowered the net pole. The ducklings darted around the drain perimeter. They were not easy to catch at all. A few at a time, he got them in the net, pulled up the pole, then lowered it again to catch more. I scooped each baby out of the net and placed them into the laundry basket. They were so tiny, soft, and fluffy. I checked each one to make sure they were not injured. They felt so fragile and almost weightless in my palms. The last few were the hardest to catch. The flat net rim left a gap against the round drain edge that they kept escaping behind. With some extra patience, we got them. We felt so relieved. But just as the supervisor was about to put the grate cover back on, he realized there was one more baby still down there, hiding inside the drain pipe. We had almost missed that one. It would not come out at first, and we had to carefully nudge it into the open where we could reach it. Fifteen ducklings. We finally had them all.
Although the mother duck had stayed nearby watching the rescue at first, she had moved somewhere out of sight while we worked. I was so focused on the babies that I had not seen exactly where she went. Since the babies could not fly, I knew they must have followed their mother on foot from somewhere in the area. The nearest pond was a half mile away, which was much too far for the babies to have walked from. A man who lived in the house along that stretch of road had come outside during the rescue. He told me there was a swamp out beyond his woods. Maybe they came from there. So we trudged through the woods and tall grasses toward the water. As we walked, I called out for the mom, hoping she would hear. “Come back, mama. We have your babies. They are right here.” I lifted the laundry basket over my head, so she could see them if she was nearby.
Then she appeared. She flew overhead, glided across the water, and settled near the bank on the other side. We cheered. “There she is! Yay!” We had brought the babies to the right place. I lifted the first few ducklings from the laundry basket and placed them gently into the water beyond the reeds. They paddled quickly across to their mother. The next few did not swim away. They stayed near their siblings still huddled inside the basket. So I tipped the basket on its side and released the rest of them together, hoping they would feel safe enough as a group to follow. We backed away to give them space and waited as they made their way across the water.
At last, the whole little family was together again.
The rescue happened a few years ago, and I finally turned the memory into a painting. This painting honors the devoted mother who watched over her family that day.
Watch the story with footage of the rescue.
Jackie Foster Art 