Animal control, residents help ducklings get acclimated

[MrScorpio]

By Christian Schiavone/[e-mail]
GateHouse News Service
Posted Jul 10, 2010 @ 10:21 PM

Belmont, Mass. —

It took an escort from a group of good Samaritans and a lengthy rescue from a storm drain, but a mallard and her ducklings finally made it safely through Belmont to their destination in Cambridge over Memorial Day weekend.

The feathered family found itself in trouble twice — first as the mother tried to lead her 11 freshly hatched ducklings through Belmont Center on a busy Saturday evening and again the following day when they again ventured down Concord Avenue toward the Cambridge line.

Saturday

Diane Miller had just finished dinner at Stone Hearth Pizza with her two daughters and some friends when they spotted the duck and 10 of her babies waddling their way across Leonard Street at about 6 p.m. on May 29.

“We decided to accompany them to make sure they found their way to the pond at the high school, which seemed like a long and dangerous journey for such little ducklings,” said Miller in an e-mail. “We stopped several times along the way when the ducks decided they were tired and the babies would all snuggled up against the mom and rest.”

Clip

Police Officer Jim Gallo responded and began directing traffic around the growing crowd. Maguranis arrived soon after. He quickly removed the metal grate and rescued eight of the ducklings, but determined the other three had slipped into a pipe leading further down into a larger water pipe underneath.

Refusing to give up, Maguranis, several neighbors and a rescue technician from the Animal Rescue League tried to coax the stranded ducklings back to the surface. Finally, the technician played recordings of a mother duck calling her ducklings on a laptop while Maguranis slid a makeshift plastic ramp down the pipe. More than a half hour later, the last duckling finally emerged.

The mallard and her ducklings were set free in a nearby pond on a golf course across Blanchard Road in Cambridge.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/belmont/newsnow/x909202681/Animal-control-residents-help-ducklings-get-acclimated

[BrklynLiberal]

1. It sure is nice to start the day with a positive story...Thank you so very much.

:pals:

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

2. Happy tears for Mama duck, her babies and their beautiful hearted rescuers. :)

[xchrom]

3. Awesome

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

[Angry Dragon]

5. A good and happy story for this Sunday morning

[lunatica]

6. Thanks for posting this

[FirstLight]

7. Love momma ducks!

we went to the beach for a quick romp yesterday, and my daughter was playing on her kickboard, a few yards out. the ducks following the current were swimming within arms reach of her and being cool
...then here comes a female with 3 babies...omg, sooo cute!

she and her ducklings actually swam all around my girl and played with her! i swear...she could have cupped her hand and had one sitting in it! she swam with them for a bit in the current, i fed them some peanuts and then they went on their way. Too damn cute

i love those kinds of interactions with animals & nature...it makes me feel better about the state of the world for brief moments...

(then my daughter asks if there are ducks in the gulf, and i said yes, how awful that those mommas and babies might not make it...so she wants to help the ducks now too :) ) that's my girl! A little activist in training, lol

[Odin2005]

8. AWW! What a wonderful story!

:D

[roguevalley]

9. awww. how lovely.

I was driving to Anchorage yesterday and a big lab was wandering along the road. no dogs live where we were in the mountains and I stopped and tried to catch the old confused and exhausted guy. Just at that moment a pickup pulled up and it was the dog catcher in my town! She had heard about him on the news and made a vow to try and find him on the way up to Whittier. She and I got him and he was taken onward to rendezvous with his owners. He was saved, the old darling. I love these kind of stories. Thank you.

[applegrove]

10. That is so sweet.

[flvegan]

11. Great story!

Thanks for posting it. Big K&R.