Work Around Her : Crews Mother-Hen Sitting Duck, Eggs

Amid a din of drilling and hammering, builders constructing a shipyard in Newport Beach worked gingerly Wednesday around a duck that has taken up residence--nest, eggs and all--in the middle of their work.

And until the eggs hatch and the ducklings are able to waddle away with their mother, the men will just have to work around her, the developer says.

The duck was discovered Saturday with a nest full of eggs on an unfinished dock that was left open so utility lines could be installed, said Doug Overby, leasing manager for the project, a boat maintenance and office complex on Pacific Coast Highway in its second stage of development. The first phase of the construction has been a full-service marine center for two years.

Wooden flooring for the dock was installed this week--except for the segment over the duck, allowing her to move in and out for food.

Planks Left Off

“We have left four planks off so she can have her little ducks and her life,” said Jim Evans, president of Turnstone Corp., the company developing the Mariners Mile Marine Center.

“What’s funny,” contractor Jack Crane said, “is all these big, husky shipyard workers taking care of it, feeding it. If somebody’s got a hose near it, someone’ll say, ‘Be careful!’ ”

Kneeling on the wooden flooring and peering through the opening at the duck, maintenance man Brian Martin on Wednesday tried coaxing the duck with shreds of bagel from his lunch.

“Come out and eat,” he urged over and over, as the mother duck hissed nervously.

“I gave her crackers yesterday, and trail mix,” he said. “She ate everything in sight, she was so hungry.”

Overby said the hole left open for the duck is “a bit of a hazard for people” so a plywood board is sometimes placed over it.

But the duck occasionally uses the gap to come up and take a stretch, Crane said.

“She’s not intimidated at all.” In fact, when Crane’s dog poked his nose in the gap for a curious sniff, Thelma snipped at it.

Martin, who was the first to see the duck on her pile of feathers and 15 eggs amid the splinters Saturday, has named his black and white friend Thelma. “Seems like a motherly image,” he said. He expects the big day will come within two weeks.

“Maybe,” he mused, “we should have champagne and cigars” when the ducklings hatch.