The Great Duck Exodus, Part Two: Follow the Leader

May's last swim in my pool!

When we last left May and her brood I had just rescued the ducklings from the pool. I went into the house and was finally going to get to work out. I was upstairs in my house when my daughter called and as I was telling her the duck tale I looked out the window and saw what looked like a duck in the yard of the house behind me. So, as I was talking to my daughter, I walked out through the garage to see what was in the yard. False alarm! It turned out to be a stuffed dog toy. As I was walking back to my garage I heard my sweet neighbor walking out her back gate to go on her daily walk. I stopped her and asked if she had any experience, or any ideas on how to get rid of my duck guests. She came over to look at them and we decided we would ask her husband to help and see if we could get them to the creek. Now the real fun began, lol.

May's last location in the pool landscaping.

Our first thought was to use a box, or some type of container that we could safely get all the ducks into, and then carry them to the creek. I had thought earlier about herding them and just walking them down to the creek, but the rescue lady I talked to suggested that they may all scatter, and then I would have an even bigger problem trying to find them all. Instead of a box I suggested my dog carrier. We decided to put the cage close to the ducks and see if we could herd them into the cage. Our thoughts were that if we could get the ducklings in, Mom may go into the cage to investigate and we would close the door and off we go to the creek. Sounds so simple, right? It was like an episode of the the Keystone Cops. The ducklings scattered and we were able to get 4 or 5 in the cage, and then they would escape through the wire in the door. My neighbor put duct tape over the bottom rows of the wire on the door and that solved at least one of the problems. This went on for about 30 or so minutes until May decided to take the rest of the ducklings into the pool. Plan B?

May and some of her ducklings trying to keep away from us.

My neighbor went back to his house to get a pool net so we could fish the ducklings out of the water. I could not use my skimmer net because it was flat and the ducks would just jump right off of it. So we now were on opposite sides of the pool and I would direct the ducklings to my neighbor, who would scoop them up and put them in the cage. Sounds like this would be easy, but May was in the water with the ducklings and she tried to keep them in the middle of the pool out of our reach. Then there were the ducklings that would escape the cage while we were putting the newly caught ones in. It was like herding cats. We finally got all 14 ducklings in the cage and waited to see if May would get drawn into the cage by her chirping ducklings. She swam up to the ramp, jumped out of the pool and walked around the cage, but would not go into the cage. Plan C?

I could not have done this without the help of my neighbors.

One of the ducklings was escaping from the cage!

All the ducklings were in the cage, but May would not go near it.

I decided that we would walk the ducklings down to the creek in the cage and see if May would follow. First, I opened the gate to the driveway/alley, and we put the cage, with the chirping ducklings, out on the driveway.  May followed her chirping babies out of the gate. My neighbor picked up the cage and started walking down the alley with May following close behind. Just when we thought this was really going to work, May went off course. There is an alcove in the fence at the house behind mine that holds a meter. May went into the alcove and when I tried to coax her out, she flew into the neighbors fenced yard. We could hear her quacking and could see her when she came by the gate, but that dumb duck would not fly back out of the yard. We knocked on the door of the home to see if maybe they would open their gate, but they were not home. After about 15 minutes of this, we decided to move the cage farther down the alley to draw her out of the yard. Worked like a champ and May few up to the top of the fence and then down into the alley. Game on!

May is walking down the alley following her ducklings on her way to the creek.

My neighbor walked towards the end of the alley, and May followed quacking all the way. Once we got to the end of the alley May decided to go into the landscaping at the house located there. We kept walking, down their front lawn toward the trail and the creek, with the chirping cage full of ducklings. May came out of the landscaping and ran down the front yard hill, to the trail, and just as we got to the bridge by the creek May took off and flew to the water.

Our next issue was how we were going to get the cage of ducklings to the water. There is a steep cement embankment that goes from the trail bridge to the water where May was at the bottom, in the water, waiting for her babies.  There was no way we could go down that embankment with a cage of ducklings, and if we did make it down, there would be no way to get back up with a cage. So, we went down as far as we could, sat the cage down, and opened the door. The ducklings walked, slid, and rolled down the embankment to their waiting Mom. Once all the ducklings were in the water, the whole group of 15, May and her 14 babies, swam off down the creek. It was a beautiful sight. After 4 hours of duck rescue and relocation, May and her family were where they belonged, and my pool is duck free once again! Win, win!