Make way for ducklings

Remember the book Make Way for Ducklings? I do, mostly because I loved (and still love) one of McCloskey's other books, One Morning in Maine, which makes me think of being a kid, and being in Maine, and my mom loving the book, as well as a bunch of very fond memories, but I digress.

Yesterday, I went for a long hike as well as a long bike ride, and as I was riding my bike on the very bike unfriendly Oakwood Avenue in Troy, I saw a duck guiding her ducklings in and around the shoulder. For those of you who don't know, Oakwood Avenue is a flat straight stretch of road where the speed limit is a posted 45 mph but people routinely exceed it. I was, quite naturally, worried about the ducks.

One of the weird things, was that the duck was not trying to guide her ducklings anywhere in particular but was just walking in a circle around a sewer grate.

I decided to take a look in the grate and as I was walking over, I saw a duckling attempting to jump out.

Then I looked closer.

There were (and you can make one of them out from that picture) eight ducklings trapped in the sewer grate.

I did what comes naturally to me. I freaked out. I called 411 to get Animal Control's number. (For Troy, the number is 518.270.3640 though the voice mail box is full.) I kept calling. Then I called my brother, explaining the situation, and asking him to look for an alternative number. His response..."They are not an endangered species." I did prevail on him to look, and he could only find the aforementioned number above. I kept trying the number I had, and thought about calling TPD but...what would I tell them? Ducklings are in danger? They have a difficult enough job without people like me bothering them with silliness. So...I kept calling and waiting and trying things like putting a stick in the grate so the ducklings could crawl up but, ducklings do not do that.

Eventually, I watched three more jump out, but there were two at the bottom who, apparently, God did not want to live, who had exhausted themselves, and several of their brothers and sisters were getting to that point. There were five or six in the sewer and I did not know what to do.

So, I left, feeling guilty and like a failure.

As I was riding up to see my brother, I saw a Postal Worker. Figuring that they may have a special number for animal control, I stopped her and asked. She looked at me askew and asked "Why?" I explained the situation and there is something about the word ducklings being so close to the word sewer and the word trapped that gets normally jaded and cynical adults to do something different (And I am not implying that this woman was jaded or cynical). I know that is how I reacted. She said that she would make an attempt to contact him through other means.

My guilt was allayed.

After about fifteen minutes with my brother (he was at my grandfather's house), I decided to get back on my bike and ride the Lansingburgh bike path and decided that I would check out the ducklings and the rescue effort.

True to her word, the USPS Carrier had made it work.

Animal Control was there. So was someone from the Humane Society.

The gentleman from Animal Control was calling someone from the City to have the grate popped to save the ducklings.

Amazing. I may have done a good thing.

Thank you to an amazing USPS Carrier, and to the City for being responsive for something so...well...unnecessary yet heartwarming.