Duck march to the Cannon River - the whole story

The Division Street duck hatchery closed today. Mother and thirteen offspring made the trek to the Cannon River. Photos by Nikki Whipple.

Update, Friday 9 am: I got the complete story from Joy Westenberg at The Kuyper Group this morning.Witnesses saw the mother duck hop off the planter and start quacking at her babies to follow her. They peered over the precipice but could not summon the courage to make the leap. So mother flew back onto the planter and knocked a couple of them off the planter onto the sidewalk, hopped back down, and quacked at the others to follow, expecting them to get the message.

As the gathering crowd gasped in horror at the outrageous act of cruelty, motherly instincts kicked in and some hand-lifted the rest of the ducklings down to their sad excuse of a mother.

Momma's next act of incompetence was to lead her troop right out into traffic for the trek east across Division, oblivious to the crosswalk nearby, earning her additional heaps of scorn from the shocked onlookers.

She headed north on the sidewalk past the Nutting Building, taking a left turn down the sloping sidewalk past the Tavern entrance, and out to River Walk by the gazebo. She flew off the 15 foot wall into the river below and called for her babies to follow suit. The lesson from the planter evidently didn't sink in, so momma flew up to the top of the wall, knocked a few off the wall into the abyss below, flew back down and barked orders for the rest to follow.

The crowd could not bear to see the scene repeated so they hand-lowered the ducklings over the edge of the wall as far as they could, and dropped them into the water, minimizing the impact.

Upon landing, the babies quickly got into formation behind their mother for a leisurely float downstream under the 2nd Street bridge. A large raccoon emerged from behind the big rocks on the west shore...

(to be continued)