There are times when you’re unsure of what to do, the best course of action is to visit your local library. In an effort to save its brothers and sisters, a courageous duckling waddled right up to the Stanwood library entrance and tapped its little bill on the glass and door frame with all its might.
According to KIRO-TV, on June 22, Stanwood Library’s Head Librarian, Marlene Moody, heard a knock on the front door. She and Vicky Beatty, a coworker, went to see who came to call. The librarians were surprised to find a baby duckling furiously flapping its little wings and attempting to climb up the window and door.
Nearby, a pair of Mallard ducks were watching anxiously.
Thanks to the little bird’s perseverance, Moodie and Beatty investigated the area. They detected a brood of about eight scared ducklings trapped in a dark access hole containing ventilation pipes connected to the crawl area.
“Marlene went outside and scooped the ducks out of the hole, but they went running in several different directions. The mama duck pursued some, but she wasn’t able to round them all up apparently because Marlene returned to the area later to check, and several of the ducklings had made it back into the same spot and became trapped again,” Library Manager Charles Pratt told Stanwood Camano News.
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KIRO news reported that the other Mallard tried to gather these ones but they had panicked and scattered. Staff workers searched the neighboring ditch area of Heritage Park, but were unable to find the pair of Mallard ducks.
Fortunately, four ducklings were rescued and transported to Sarvey Wildlife Care Center in Arlington.
The duck-related drama was not over, however.
Vicky had just sat down when she heard a peeping sound coming from the ventilation area near her desk.
Pratt rushed to make a call to City Hall requesting reinforcements. A responder crawled under the structure and used a net to rescue two more ducklings.
“It was the end of my day by this point, and my wife and daughter came to pick me up, so the three of us made a second trip out to Sarvey to deliver the last two ducklings,” Pratt said.
A week later, he stopped by the ducklings’ new home to see how they were doing. Everything was hunky-dory at the waterfowl nursery; the six rescues looked happy, healthy and robust.
Pratt thanked all, including his staff, for their kindness and quick action.
“Thanks to all of you for being such caring and compassionate folks. Y’all are a bunch of ‘good eggs.’”
The Stanwood Library shared a chuckle-some post with a photo of the plucky duckling at the library door on their Facebook wall, saying, “You never know who will show up at the library!”
