22/09/2026
I had the absolute privilege a few days ago of being able to witness some amazing members of my local community come together and go above and beyond to conduct their own incredible rescue of a family of wild native Pacific Black ducklings.
So as you may know, mother ducks tend to lay their eggs away from their home waterway - often in unsuspecting people’s backyards (usually ones with swimming pools), then within a few hours of their ducklings hatching, the mother walks them to the creek or lake that she intends to live at and raises them there. This walk can be up to 5km for the newborns to have to trek, often crossing roads, highways, drains, dodging cars, avoiding dogs and predators and all sorts of potentially dangerous obstacles, quite often many ducklings not making it to the destination or getting lost along the way.
This particular mother duck had made a nest in what she thought was the perfect safe place for her babies. Foxes couldn’t reach them and the area was relatively hidden from view. It was in a rooftop garden of a multi level building that was unoccupied.
Only problem was although she could easily fly in and out, her babies were going to have to somehow get down to the ground level in order to be able to walk the nearly 2km to the nearby lake once they hatched.
Nobody had detected the mother duck sitting on her eggs over the last few weeks, mainly we believe because the building was currently predominantly vacant.
Then early Thursday morning, Keira was walking along the street and spotted what appeared to be quite a distressed duck on the footpath, with some ducklings by her side but quacking and frantically looking at a vent on the side of a building. Hearing the sound of ducklings on the other side of the vent , Keira realised there were some more trapped inside and their mother was calling to them but helpless to get them out.
She spoke to a worker from a nearby business who phoned a friend of hers who lived nearby who was an animal lover and had rescued animals before. She soon arrived along with her very resourceful husband and the small team worked together to try to figure out how to get the ducklings out. The building was on a very busy road near a railway line and train station, so they decided to catch the ducklings that were on the footpath putting them into a cardboard box to keep them safe whilst they worked out how to get the remaining ones out from behind the vent. The mother duck meanwhile was very vocal as she went between the box with some of her babies inside to the vent where the rest of her babies were stuck behind, quite stressed and clearly wanting to be on her way with them all to the safety of the nearby lake as soon as possible.
Phoning the agent and then the body corporate manager of the building to try to get access inside it, they didn’t have much luck, but armed with tools and being a handyman, the husband soon had the grate off the vent . They were horrified to then witness a couple of ducklings literally falling down from a pipe up the top down the few metres to the concrete below inside the compartment.
The ducklings already at the bottom huddled together in a corner joined by the ones that had just dropped down. The rescuers quickly but carefully scooped them up to place them into the box with their siblings. One of the ducklings who had just fallen didn’t look very good, then they realised there was still a duckling in the compartment, however it had gone behind the machinery inside there and although they briefly spotted it and heard it, it had now gone quiet and was unreachable.
Meanwhile it had all been a bit too much for the mother duck and she had flown off in the direction of the lake. The little rescue team then called for help and I arrived on the scene.
I had an animal carrier with towels and a heatpad inside and transferred the ducklings into it. We just had the one duckling left to try to get out from behind the machinery. We tried placing the carrier with its quacking siblings inside the shaft to hopefully tempt it to come out but after waiting for some time we neither saw nor heard it. We tried playing the sound of an adult duck quacking on our phone. We then squirted water around the area , pushed an extension pole gently through gaps where we could. Nothing. I was beginning to doubt the duckling was still in there and perhaps it had somehow squeezed through a gap and was no longer in the compartment. Perhaps we should just take the other 11 ducklings who were safely in the carrier and try to reunite with their mother. It had now been several hours since the family had first been reported.
But the rescuer who had briefly spotted it was adamant it was there and wouldn’t give up. He took a mobile phone and taped it to a pole with a torch taped on the other side and slowly pushed the pole in and behind the machinery where he could to film the areas that we couldn’t see or reach. When we viewed the footage we spotted it! The duckling was still there , pushing itself up behind a pipe, hiding as best it could. But how to get it out? I quickly went back home which was nearby to retrieve my ladder and some longer extension poles. By the time I had returned, one of the rescuers had somehow managed to climb up on top of the machinery and had taped a piece of cardboard onto a pole that was taped to another pole. After a few attempts he was able to gently push the duckling out from behind the pipe then using my net on a telescopic pole scoop the duckling up. They had done it! All 12 ducklings were now safe!
Now to reunite them with their parents. We were fairly sure their mother had flown to the nearby lake, but couldn’t be certain. All we could do was take the ducklings there and walk around the area with them inside the carrier making noise and hope the mother would hear them and come to us. I knew that we couldn’t release them without being certain it was the right mother duck, and I hoped she was actually there and not perhaps now back at the building looking for her babies there.
Three of us made our way to the lake with the ducklings with one staying back to screw the vent back into place then follow later.
We started at the section of the lake where we assumed the little family would have reached first if they had walked there and started slowly walking along the bank. We spotted some adult ducks but they were wood ducks and mallards, not pacific blacks. As we walked we then spotted some pacific blacks and excitedly put the carrier down and moved away to allow them to approach. They curiously started to, then swam away. As we walked we started to lose hope. There weren’t many ducks around at all and although we came across another pair of pacific blacks, they too didn’t seem very interested in the ducklings.
We got to a little cove and were hopeful as a sign said ‘Duck Point’ which we took as a good omen. But we couldn’t see a single duck. We stood there for a while with the carrier on the ground next to us, contemplating what to do. If we couldn’t reunite them, they would have to go to a wildlife carer, many of whom I knew were already at capacity. As we talked we suddenly heard a very loud but insistent quacking. As we looked towards the trees a duck came bursting out of the undergrowth, rushing towards the carrier quacking loudly. It was their mother! She had heard her babies and had come for them!
I slowly got up and moved the carrier closer to the water and unzipped one side. The mother duck had already gone to the water’s edge and was calling to her babies. Hearing their mother’s voice they shot out towards her, all entering the water with their mother fussing over each one seeming to count them all in excitement and disbelief that they were really all there. After a couple more quacks in our direction (not sure if in thanks or telling us off) she guided her little family out into the water and we watched them all swim off with tears of joy as we did. We all agreed it was all so worth it and my faith in humans has been restored. What a morning and what an inspiring trio who rescued the little family making the beautiful reunite possible.
