I was riding my bicycle to Burnaby Lake Park, early in the morning (According to my standards at the time; I had to set my alarm clock for 8AM to allow time for a long bike ride). Event: raking some sand at a turtle nesting site.
At 9:45am on the side of Winston street, past the intersection with Sperling Ave, I stopped my bike to pay respect to a female Mallard duck who was there with a couple of fluffy ducklings. Suddenly I realized that quackings are coming from down the storm drain, over which mommy duck was walking back and forth. The two last little ones were following mom faithfully and one by one fell down through the sewer grate too…
At Burnaby Lake Park I met a couple of wildlife animal rescue members, and together we launched “Operation Duck”. As the three of us were hovering over the storm drain, mama duck walked to the middle of the highway; we tried to get her to walk back, so she flew high up a far away tree.
Dave managed to lift the grate and had a pasta strainer handy to scoop the young ones.
Ducklings are safe and reunited with mom.
I’m a hero.


