Duckling Gives Wing to Gentle Journey
It was a warm, spring Saturday morning, and the cats, who just minutes before had been lolling decadently in the grass of my Woodland Hills backyard, suddenly were hyperkinetic. They had found prey--something small and desperate trying to evade them by scurrying madly back and forth in the shrubbery.
My daughter Jessica and I dashed to the rescue--lifelong cat lovers, we nevertheless have no illusions about their predatory ways. We got there just in time to save their victim, hunkered down, staring at us with terrified eyes. I stared back, uncomprehending.
A mallard duckling--and only days old, by the look of it. Where did it come from? We have no swimming pool, nor is our house near a pond. No sign of a mom duck or siblings. Just this little ball of golden brown fluff, mostly bill and webbed feet.
We knew right then that our carefully planned Saturday had been turned upside-down by something weighing roughly 2 ounces. Jessica’s guitar lesson, the shopping, the movie we’d planned to see--forgotten in favor of the tiny life now squirming in my hands.
But an adventure better than a movie, better even than cruising Topanga Plaza, was about to begin. An adventure lightly touched with mystery.
Along the way, we’d meet kindly animal shelter folks, a friendly college security guard, a group of high-spirited sheep shearers and, ultimately, the Valley’s best-known foster parents for animals.
*
Rule 1 of small-animal rescues--find a shoe box and punch holes in the lid. As the duck pecked angrily at its makeshift roof, we headed out in search of sanctuary.
At the West Valley Animal Shelter in Chatsworth, the woman on duty eyed the shoe box curiously. Well, we told her, this duck mysteriously appeared in our backyard. I gently lifted the lid. Out came the critter, extremely ticked off but cute enough to elicit a broad smile from the shelter woman.
“We’ll take him,” she said at first. Then, hesitating, she said: “You live near Pierce College? They have duck ponds there. I’m not sure what would happen to him here. Maybe you should take him to Pierce and try to get him together with the other ducks there.”
Not sure what would happen to him? Yikes! Ominous.
OK, we reasoned, public animal shelters are for abandoned pets, not stray wildlife.
At Pierce’s sprawling campus in Woodland Hills, a guard chuckled and said, “Let me call my partner. He knows a lot about ducks.”
The partner, a clean-cut, friendly young man, had no problem leaving machismo behind to exclaim over our little find, giving us directions to the ponds with a hearty, “Good luck, girls.”
Arriving at Pierce’s much-publicized farm, the one so fiercely defended by some as a pastoral oasis in the densely built West Valley, we did indeed find ponds full of ducks--securely fenced off.
But just a short way up a hill, sporting sun hats and sitting on bales of hay, were people absorbed in . . . shearing sheep and spinning wool. I began to wonder which century I was in.
It turned out that they were rehearsing for the annual Spring Farm Walk at Pierce the following weekend.
One of the sheep people, a woman with a certain look of authority, turned out to be Margo Furman, an utterly charming person who instantly took charge.
“Give him to us,” said Furman, a Pierce student whom I later discovered heads the Coalition to Save the Farm. “We’ll get him someplace he’ll be taken care of.” Saddened that we had to relinquish him but confident it was the right thing to do, I scribbled my name and number on a piece of paper and asked Furman to call once the duckling was settled in a safe place.
The next day, she called. “He’s at the Wildlife Waystation,” she said with great cheer. “One of our members took him up there yesterday.”
I was impressed. Our duckling had a nationally famous home. The compound, run by French-born Martine Colette, is the only private, licensed facility of its kind in the nation. Founded by Colette, whose father was an animal trapper by trade, it provides shelter to abused, injured or neglected mammals, reptiles and birds and is largely supported by donations.
Inevitably, Jessica and I talked ourselves into a duckling-hunting trip to the Waystation, which is located on the far side of the Valley in the dusty hills of the Angeles National Forest above Lake View Terrace.
We intentionally hadn’t named our little visitor, knowing that it would have been the height of human folly to grow too fond of him. But that didn’t stop him from tugging at our hearts.
First, though, I called to see how he was doing.
“I don’t think he’s here,” a woman named Diana told me. “I can’t find any record of a duck being brought in that weekend.”
My heart sank. What could have happened? Surely the sheep shearers hadn’t deceived us. Surely nothing dreadful had befallen our orphan duck.
Two days of frantic calls later, I found Pierce farm volunteer Jan Wolf, who clearly remembered driving the duckling to the Waystation.
“I know he’s there!” she said. “I know the people at the Waystation. Let me call them and see what’s up.”
A few hours later, Diana was back on the phone.
“He’s here!”
Although his paperwork had been misplaced, our orphan was ensconced with three other stray ducklings in the “BatMobile,” the Waystation’s name for its animal nursery.
So as soon as the Waystation could fit us in (it is open to the public only on the first and third Sundays of the month, and usually booked solid), Jessica, a friend and I went for a tour.
The irony: The nursery isn’t on the tour.
We saw bears (including one who is only happy when music plays so he can dance), tigers, lions (including one named Leo who is supported by contributions from Arnold Schwarzenegger), jaguars, monkeys, coyotes and much more.
The animals on the tour cannot be returned to the wild. But the nursery is a sacrosanct place where baby creatures--many of them displaced by humans--are raised in the hope that they can one day become what nature intended: free. Making them comfortable with humans would be harmful.
I suppose I could have sweet-talked my way into the nursery by saying that “my animal” was there. Or I could have flashed a press credential.
But the more I learned about how the Waystation mitigates the cruelty of humankind, the less inclined I was to violate the sanctity of these creatures’ last, best hope.
Jessica and I think of him often. I have his picture in my office. When I look at the photo, it is not just him I see. I also see the life-affirming chain of people who helped me save a tiny symbol of wildlife’s ongoing struggle to survive.
