A Ducks Tale

[Deleted member 35268]

My Sunday ride was blighted by the sight of a family of ducks that had been hit by one or more cars. As I rounded a corner on a busy-ish road near Henley on Thames, the mother duck was dead on one side, followed by several small chicks - all dead but one, which was still alive but injured and crying out. I jumped off my bike when the road was clear and scooped it up. I could see it had a broken leg and was unable to move. I decided initially to put it safely to away from the road, on the river side of the road I assume they were heading to. I rode off but then realised that it would not survive on its own and was unable to move. I put it in my back pocket of my slightly loose cycling jacket. It cried out on and off for th next 20 minutes as I cycled home. I was worried it would suffocate or just get too stressed so I occassionally stopped to ventilate the pocket and check it was still alive.

My plan was to take it somewhere by car as soon as I could sort something. After placing it in a dark room in a carry case for an hour, we then took it to Tiggywinkles near Thame - a 40 minute drive. They hopefully were able to help it. I will call later this week to find out if it survived and what future it has. A life is a life, and I owe much of my love of animals to my wonderful daughter, who has taught me so much about caring for nature.

I'm sure some of you will have come across dead animals, or even injured animals before. I found out a few things about what to do in such situations and I think I did the right thing. You can actually call the RSPB for larger injured animals.

https://www.sttiggywinkles.org.uk/

 

[Drago]

Good on yer. Hope Daffy survives,

Some drivers are just arrisholes. Anyone driving at a speed that won't let them slow down enough to avoid ducks is unlikely to be able to avoid a human.

 

[biggs682]

Fantastic and well done

 

[annedonnelly]

You can actually call the RSPB for larger injured animals.

I think you mean the RSPCA.

 

[Drago]

Fat chance of the RSPCA going out. I spent more time rescuing swans and horses than those lazy beggars ever did.

 

[Cycleops]

Just glad he didn’t made into this:

 

[PeteXXX]

In their breeding season, we quite often get a few families of ducks wandering around our extremely busy transport yard (about 180 truckers and even more trailers!) we just slow down and wait for them to waddle past and warn each other if they're sheltering under a vehicle.

A couple of years ago, a family of them fell down a drain grating. The drivers saw what has happened, pulled up the drain cover and someone jumped down the manhole and popped all the ducklings into a veg tray and released them at the edge of the yard where mummy duck waddled off with them 😍

Well done for the rescue effort @Rooster1 👍

 

[T4tomo]

They can be very mesmerising watching mother and duckligs. I spent an hour or so when the kids were young watching a mother duck guiding her flock up some little stream cascade thingy. One duckling got washed off a bit of a ledge somewhere so was split off from the rest. No fear, Mrs duck guided the other 9or 10 duckling down after tumble-duck, which took her ages and then once reunited they all about turned and set off back again to wherever they were going! Incredibe patience and care.

 

[Deleted member 35268]

Bad news. the Ducks leg was too badly damaged and was put down. RIP Duckie

 

[Drago]

Well done for trying.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

Yes, well done for making the effort.