Grate Work: Police Rescue Ducklings From Storm Drain

No job is too small for her officers, Southampton Village Police Acting Chief Suzanne Hurteau said Friday morning.

Earlier on June 24, two officers came to the rescue of a flock of ducklings that followed their mother over a storm grate, unaware that the holes in it were just large enough for them to fall through.

Officers Kyle McGuinness and Ed Reid responded to the scene at Flying Point Road at around 7 a.m. Two workers had seen the mother duck and heard her quacking and seeming distressed. Then they heard the ducklings in the storm drain, McGuinness explained.

The two officers, both of them also firefighters, used a forcible entry tool to unhinge the grate, then lifted it together. The drainage structure was about 4 feet wide and 5 feet deep.

McGuinness braced himself, using the walls to lower himself down into the well of road runoff, making sure to avoid the ducklings. Stepping into the knee-deep water, he began scooping up the first duckling. “They scattered,” he related. But as one popped up, he’d catch it and pass it to Reid. Meanwhile, the mother duck, who had two more babies with her, continued circling above.

As the ducklings were handed off, Reid and the two workers herded them toward their mom. Eight in all, the twack — the official word for “a group of ducks” — of quackers waddled off safely to their mother.

Wet to his knees, McGuinness went home to change into dry socks and pants and return to duty.

This is his first duckling rescue, he said. “It was fun,” he offered, “a nice change of pace.”

There are more than 100 species of ducks in the world and they are found on every continent except Antarctica. Their broad, flat bills are used as food scoops or strainers; they don’t chew. Plumage varies, but their feathers are so tightly connected that their skin stays dry even during a deep dive, and an oil-producing gland provides natural water-proofing.

John Di Leonardo, who specializes in wildfowl rescues and is president of Long Island Orchestrating for Nature said, after seeing photos of the rescued little ones that they look like mallards.

While it’s clear the ducklings fell through the grate, the duck drama does have a mystery attached to it. The closest water body, Pheasant Pond, is off Pheasant Close North, and the most direct route would mean a waddle across the Downs Family Recreational Park, then through a residential property to the water, a distance of over 1,000 feet.

That’s a lot of steps for webbed feet.