Ducklings end up down the drain
- John Lorson: The Rail Trail Naturalist
- June 9, 2025
- 464
Momma duck knows a thing or two about humans. Even if she’s silly enough to lay her eggs in the landscaping of a busy parking lot, chances are you’ll never even know she’s there. That is, of course, until her ducklings hatch. Then it becomes a race against time to get her crew assembled and march them off to the nearest body of water, where their webbed feet can propel them at speed and a buffet of aquatic insects, vegetation and invertebrates await.
All along the way, she does her best to stay quiet and keep the kids under cover. When an emergency arises, however, she’s apt to let the world know there’s trouble.
Such was the situation in the parking lot of the Wayne County Administration Building, where I work. I’m not so sure any of the hundreds of people who come and go there each day even knew Mother Mallard was there until she stood on the curb at the edge of the parking lot quacking incessantly and making all manner of fuss. A quick investigation by a passerby found all of her ducklings had done what ducklings do and gone for the nearest body of water — which just so happened to be at the bottom of a storm sewer catch basin.
If you’re going to do the wrong thing, it often pays to be in the right place, and I’m guessing a hole in the ground a hundred yards from the door of a conservation agency is a pretty good place to get yourself in trouble if you’re a duckling.
My colleagues and I sprang into action. The maintenance guys were able to pull the heavy iron grate to allow access to those of us who keep amongst our tools of our trade nets specifically meant for scooping wildlife out of the water. And while those nets are typically used to pull dragonfly nymphs, midges and mayfly larvae from the bottom of a stream, they also do a pretty good job of extracting ducklings from concrete catch basins.
In just two scoops, all seven of the fuzzy little peepers were returned to the surface, where mother awaited to march them across the lot to the fairgrounds. We provided a traffic-stopping escort, of course.
Woven in the rescue story is a greater message. Even though the ducklings had the wrong approach, they were on the right track. That water in the catch basin eventually flows out into an open ditch, which in turn flows to a stream, then a larger creek, then a river. Had mother been able to join them, they could have continued on their course unscathed and ended up just where they needed to be — and none the worse for the wear.
The lesson, of course, is all catch basins lead to the sea. That oil drip from your car, the napkin that blows out of your open door, the greasy fries, the empty pop bottle, even the leaves and lawn clippings people blow to the edge of the street — all of it ends up in the storm sewer system, where it flows, entirely untreated, into the natural environment. Things that go into the storm sewer system don’t go away; they just go somewhere else, most often to cause problems of one sort or another.
Please do your part to keep our waters clean. We all live downstream of somewhere.
If you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email jlorson@alonovus.com. You also can follow along on Instagram @railtrailnaturalist.