Ducks safely cross road after Rep. Rice stops traffic in Manhattan

Did you hear the one about the congresswoman and the ducks?

In fowl times, here’s a tail that will quack you up. The low-DOWN: She didn’t quack under pressure.

Visiting her 94-year-old aunt for Independence Day weekend before the firequackers, U.S. Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-Garden City) was in Manhattan around noon Friday when she passed a bill — three of them, actually, all wayward — on a mother duck and two ducklings on Third Avenue around 65th Street, according to her spokesman, Stuart Malec.

Rice decided to help lead the birds to Central Park — a 45-minute journey recorded, unbeknownst to her, by a bystander and uploaded in a 37-second clip to the Internet, Malec said. As of 6:30 p.m., the video had about 136,000 views on Instagram and 173,000 on Twitter. 

“Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!” Rice, in sandals and jeans, is shown pleading with zooming traffic on what appeared to be Fifth Avenue, next to the park. She waves the duck trio across the roadway.

“Proud to serve every New Yorker, including those with webbed feet,” Rice‘s campaign account tweeted later.

Malec said that Rice — who was Nassau County district attorney from 2006 until 2015, when she went to Congress — was unavailable to comment later Friday.

Rice ducked an interview.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.