Suffolk Police rescue ducklings from Holtsville storm drain
A mother duck and her 12 ducklings are back in line after being rescued Friday, May 13, 2016, by Suffolk County police emergency service officers from a storm drain in Holtsville. Credit: James Carbone
Who’s ready for ANOTHER happy duckling rescue story?
Following a similar scenario Thursday in Miller Place, Suffolk County’s finest did the honors again Friday, this time plucking 12 ducklings from the bottom of a Holtsville storm drain.
The call came in at 7:25 a.m., said Suffolk County police, who dispatched an emergency services team to Middle Avenue, near Island 16 Cinemas and a Residence Inn.
On arriving at her nearby workplace and seeing the officers, Valerie Burke said her first thought was, “Oh, God.” She said she was quickly brought up to speed, though, by a woman who said she had earlier summoned police after the highly agitated mother duck had landed near her, and then went on to pace back and forth near the drain.
Officer Mark Collins was lowered down by rope and harness into the hole, where he said he was called on to chase and capture each of the scampering ducklings.
In due time a cardboard box full of its quacking cargo was raised, and Collins was hauled up — with the help of pulley equipment by officers Danny Coan, who was also in on the Miller Place rescue, and Frank Rendon.
Calls for duckling assistance are pretty common at this time of year, Collins said. A mother duck can waddle right over the drain grates, he said, but her offspring, following her lead, are so small that they “drop right in,” he said, one after the next after the next.
Suffolk County police emergency service officer Mark Collins, with the 12 ducklings that he rescued from storm drain, right, behind Island 16 Cinema's in Holtsville on Friday, May 13, 2016. Valerie Burke, left, witnessed the rescue and helped relocate the ducklings to their mother. Credit: James Carbone
Possibly appreciating that the mother duck, who had been monitoring from the top of a nearby building, might prefer to reunite — and perhaps scold — her raft in private, the officers departed, Burke said. She and the woman then moved the box to a more secluded area, tilted the box over and walked away.
Sure enough, mom swooped in, mobilized her crew and led them all off in that ducks-in-a-row kind of way, she said.
“I was glad to see that they were all OK,” said Burke, an animal lover who’s an administrative assistant at nearby H.O. Penn Machinery Co.
With a nod to the officers, she said, “It was a job well done.”
Marking the Jan. 6 Capitol attack ... Longtime German restaurant closing ... Get the latest news and more great videos at NewsdayTV
Marking the Jan. 6 Capitol attack ... Longtime German restaurant closing ... Get the latest news and more great videos at NewsdayTV
