The other day I saw a mother duck with about a half dozen little newborn ducklings trailing behind. The site was wonderful. The mother was guiding them away from the housing complex with its dangerous roads and towards the safe haven of the slough, a tidal marsh and bird sanctuary. The mother stepped up on and over the curb, the final hurdle to get to the slough. Each duckling tried to follow. Each of the six ducklings made it except one – the last one. He climbed, slipped, and fell on his back.
Ducklings attempt the curb climb
The little fallen duckling became absolutely helpless once on his back. He squeaked and squeaked but his mother did not come back to help. The mother and other ducklings just kept heading towards the safety of the high reeds and water. The little duckling’s legs flailed. He made every attempt to roll back over and upright but, to no avail. My worry was that if the little creature became separated from his mother, he would die. However, I remembered reading years ago that with some animals, if the mother detected the scent of a human on them, the baby animal would be abandoned. I wasn’t sure if this applied to ducks.
I found a stick (in the picture to the right of the last duckling), and used it to upright the duckling. The duckling made it back on his little webbed feet. I had hoped he would continue on the path up and over the curb to the safety of the reeds and his mother. Instead, he walked in the opposite direction back onto the busy road and to the houses. So I tried to communicate the right direction to the duckling by steering him toward the curb. It didn’t work. He just ran to a puddle in the middle of the road and stayed there.
Duckling moves to puddle on asphalt
I stayed with the duckling while my girlfriend ran inside to Google whether it was safe to handle the duckling for the ducklings’ sake. She came back in a few minutes to say that she couldn’t find much about mother ducks abandoning ducklings after humans touched them. I then gently lifted the duckling and brought him up to the banks of the bay. The duckling seemed to like the cover of the reeds and stayed there for a few minutes. We hoped that the mother would here the continual squeaks that it made and would come back to get him.
We watched for a while until we thought the duckling was relatively safe. We wanted to leave the scene as soon as we could so that the mother would not be stopped by the sight of us. We left the duckling in the safety of the reeds close to the bank of the bay and near to where we last saw the mother.
Later when we came back to the scene the duckling was gone. No sign of the duckling or mother. We had hoped our plan worked and that they reunited. The question is this: did I do the right thing by handling the duckling to take it back closer to the mother where it was safer among the reeds?
Close-up of the lost duckling
Did my handling of the duckling help the situation or hurt it? Would the mother duck accept the duckling back? I’d like to know your opinion. We just wanted to help the duckling. Comments welcome.
May 24th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Without a doubt you did the right thing. I’m impressed with your perseverance. (I would have done the same and agonized over it, too.) You had to put the duckling in the right place, what else could you do? I believe it is most likely that the mother came back after she started counting. They obviously have some way of communicating, through radar or sounds or scent, and I’m sure a duckling gets lost all the time
I don’t think your touching the ducklinhg woud affect anything. We had two hamsters once- two males and when the one “male” suddenly had 12 babies, I first got a second cage to isolate the dad as there was now hostility. Then the second cage was bigger – I can’t recall but there was some reason – and I was forced to move the babies TWICE, and I was really scared the mom would abandon them, as the hamster books said that could happen. But even after two man-handlings the mom nursed them all and we were able to find homes for all 12.
May 24th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Thanks Lindy for the helpful feedback and support. I was worried about the duckling. Your hamster story was great. Gives some proof, at least with that species, that the mother doesn’t necessarily abandon the young after human touch. I’m still not positive about ducks yet though.