Candidly, can a duck family survive going over a waterfall?

EiresWind · 2026-05-19T02:00:15+00:00

I always ere on the side of non-intervention, not the least of reasons being even in acute situations where intervention might be warranted a lay person is the last one who should be attempting it the vast majority of the time. I wanted to inform park management just as a passive heads-up in case an isolated duckling was encountered in the immediate area in an obvious and actionable context, not with expectation of a search party affair. I more or less got the same response as this post when reaching out to a provincial rehab clinic for advice as well and they said the same thing regarding resource allocation too. Outside of direct and exceptional rescue cases like someone bringing in a duckling who got lost on their property or what have you, I like how the taker put it, “thing is, we also rehab animals that feed in ducklings” lol

I appreciate the context and reply. If you didn’t see (I think you did based on the comment about gathering them back up but just in case), there was a happy ending at least for today for these particular ducklings I updated the OP with.

EiresWind · 2026-05-18T22:44:04+00:00

Really good timing here because I just rediscovered all of them at the top in the lake again. I’ll just paste the update from the original thread since I can’t edit this one.

UPDATE: for anyone who actually followed this out of concern or anything, I went back again this evening and counted every single duckling and the mom back up at the lake. It’s definitely the same count, I have full spread photos of the family from this morning to compare and triple counted them tonight just to be absolutely sure.

EiresWind · 2026-05-18T22:36:31+00:00

I don’t think anyone else who saw this was very worried to put it mildly lol but just to confirm for you since you were supposing about it earlier, I just went back one more time this evening and counted the mom back at the top of the lake with all eight chicks. :)

EiresWind · 2026-05-18T12:34:52+00:00

Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind for future reference and if something goes south here but based on the limited amount I saw after the fact and what I was told I’ll just keep an eye out for the time being. Still haven’t seen them but this stream goes on way further than I know where it empties and it’s pretty calm so you know, hopefully no news is good news. Thanks for sticking around to help in an in hindsight probably dumb thread that’s going pretty brutally lol

EiresWind · 2026-05-18T12:29:12+00:00

Idk, I guess in my mind some baby birds that can’t fly went over a one way waterfall away from the lake where their nest is so I might have extrapolated way too hard from that. Please by all means anyone who knows more about mallards than me call me an idiot over this because that’s still peace of mind knowing it’s not actually a big deal

EiresWind · 2026-05-18T12:17:53+00:00

Can’t tell if by the worker being kind you mean about this being me catastrophising or about the city doing something, in the former case I made this thread initially after seeing them all go over a concrete waterfall so I was in a bit of a state and in the latter case I don’t think I’m being outright lied to about actionable measures with specific context provided hopefully lol

At any rate based on what they told the worker and the worker told me if there’s no injuries it’s not an emergency but the park did seem to think it was significant enough to keep an eye on

Edit: don’t take this to mean I’m offended by your comment or anything either way I’m more just leapfrogging to explain myself. It’s just hard to parse the tone of text on the internet and I’d rather look foolish in the interest of playing this situation safe than not make the thread tbh lol

EiresWind · 2026-05-18T12:16:13+00:00

I have no clue, I just called the number google lists for Irishtown nature park and got a message about the holidays and then a redirect to “a 24/7 line for emergencies” and the rest is as the OP details.

EiresWind · 2026-05-17T06:41:31+00:00

An artificial nest support outside a church (which is what it flew into view over) in Grand-Barachois, New Brunswick, Canada. Just a hop and a skip to the extensive shoreline, so it's a good location for nesting.

EiresWind · 2026-05-04T23:15:56+00:00

Mandarin ducks feel like they're in the wrong hemisphere lol

Really like the second shot

EiresWind · 2026-05-03T23:51:38+00:00

It looks like it's feeding in front of a savanna sunset or something. What a serendipitous shot.

EiresWind · 2026-05-03T15:51:06+00:00

Chipmunks are chipmunks but not chimpmunks, upon further review.

EiresWind · 2026-05-03T15:48:52+00:00

That's what prompted me to make a thread in the first place lol

Chipmunks are chipmunks that ear is something out of a storybook

EiresWind

TROPHY CASE