At smoko, my coworkers mentioned that there were 4 ducklings swimming without a mother around Minnawarra Park. I didnt take much heed to it as the mother usually finds them, or they attach themselves to another mother duck on the lake. When we saw they were still swimming and squawking it dawned on me, they were swimming up the top end of the lake! The lake in Minnawarra Park has drains at either end of it. The one at the west end is called the spill way and its where the excess water drains away, under the road to the other side of the shops. Where the ducklings were hanging out was the east drain, which is two huge round tunnels where the water feeds through from Sanctuary Lake. Lightbulb moment, perhaps the ducklings hatched in Sanctuary then fell into the drain at the bottom end of the lake and slipped though to Minnawarra. So we drove round to Sanctuary to see, and there was Mumma duck standing on the wall of the drain looking down into it. Now the drain in Sanctuary is like a concrete box that is about 3m high (2m where the water feeds through), with the entrance of the 2 large round tunnels that feed under the road and into Minnawarra. We got the bird net and the crab net (yes, for some strange reason we have a crab net) and tried the catch the little buggers. In the end the guy I worked with had to take his boots off and wade into the concrete floor of the drain entry and catch them with the net, as every time we tried the ducklings kept swimming to the middle and out of our reach. We threw them in a bucket and drove over to sanctuary to release them. Those are the 4 little ducklings you see in the photo. As I managed to coax them out of the bucket, we noticed there were more in the drain in Sanctuary. Now Ducks obviously cant count, but if they can hear their babies squawking then they will know one is missing. Turns out there were another 6 Ducklings stuck down in this side of the drain and if we didnt get them out, then chances are the mother would keep going back to the drain and have the babies sucked down there again. The solution, me hanging upside down with a net trying to scoop them out of the 3m drain and now that I think about it, not very OH&S of me. I could only just reach them (my shorter coworker tried and was about 10cm short of getting them), it took a couple of go's but we got all 6 out and reunited with Mumma Duck. And they all lived Happily Ever After :)
That is so so sweet!
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