Duck In Distress

On a 50mph stretch of the A484, a duck was on the roadside and she would not leave. She wasn't crossing and she wasn't lost. She was in distress, pacing that thin strip of verge between the tarmac and the drain, calling at a world that does not slow down for anyone. From experience, a duck who will not move for traffic usually means her ducklings are somewhere they cannot climb out of.

We stopped, and she came at us, which was fair: we were between a mother and a brood she could hear and could not reach. We found them in the storm drain, a dark drop no duckling has the wings or the sense to reverse, traffic still doing fifty over their heads as if nothing in the world was happening.

She didn't trust us, and we didn't ask her to. We worked around her until the anger changed, the way it does when she realises the hands at the drain are bringing them up, not taking them away. One by one they came out and went back to her. Then we moved the whole family somewhere the carriageway couldn't have them.

If you see a duck lingering on a fast road, call us. She can't sort a storm drain from the verge, and the traffic will not ease. If you can donate, you help us keep being the people who will stop and get them out.