Mount Greenwood Neighbors Team Up To Free Ducklings Trapped In Sewer, Reunite Them With Mother

Kylee Tenison was driving to work Thursday morning when she spotted a single duck acting strangely on the 10400 block of South Hamlin Avenue in Mount Greenwood.

"I saw a duck on the street and I thought, 'That's weird, just one duck alone.' Then I noticed that it was circling the sewer," Tenison said.

Tenison, a Mount Greenwood resident and a junior at the University of Iowa, pulled over with her sister to check it out. Looking down through the grate, they could hear quacking and see splashing below. The mother duck above was, in Tenison's words, "freaking out and going crazy."

Her ducklings had fallen into the sewer.

At about 8:20 a.m., the sisters called 311 to report the trapped birds. They also posted about the situation in a local Facebook group before heading to work.

"We had to get to work. I wish I could have stayed to help but we had to leave," Tenison said.

Neighbors began responding within minutes. About half an hour later, someone commented that a group had gotten the ducklings out of the sewer and back with their mother.

"I was so happy," Tenison said. "All my coworkers even said how exciting it was that they were finally safe and back with their mother."

Word of the rescue spread fast enough that Kate Barone, who saw Tenison's post, drove past the block on her way to drop her son off at summer camp at Brother Rice High School. She didn't see anything happening at first. But on her way back, she spotted the newly freed family crossing 103rd Street near Lawndale Avenue, about a block from the sewer where they'd been trapped.

"I figured it had to be the same ducks that were posted about because these guys were pretty new," Barone said.

Watching the mother lead her ducklings across a busy street hit her differently than she expected.

"As a mom, my first reaction was to stop and get these guys to safety, to make sure they were not in harm's way because 103rd Street is pretty busy," Barone said.

The ducks made it across without incident. Barone believes they were headed toward Lake Marion, a small lake on Saint Xavier University's Chicago campus not far from where the rescue happened.

A visit to Lake Marion Thursday afternoon found ducks matching the description of the rescued family. They were seen swimming across the water before tucking into a smaller, secluded wetland area at the edge of the lake.

Storm sewers are a recurring hazard for ducks nesting in residential neighborhoods, where mother ducks often lead newly hatched broods across streets and sidewalks in search of open water. Ducklings can slip through the gaps in a curbside grate while their mother, too big to follow, is left standing above, unable to help. Chicago's 311 system fields these calls regularly during hatching season. The city's Department of Animal Care and Control and local fire crews have handled similar rescues in past years, sometimes using nets or ropes, sometimes just lifting the grate to reach the birds below.

In this case, neighbors reached the ducklings before any city crew arrived, according to the timeline described by Tenison. She said she did not get the names of the people who pulled the ducklings out, but credited the Facebook post and the speed with which her neighbors responded.

"I'm grateful for the people that actually went out and saved the baby ducks. The Mount Greenwood community is awesome," Tenison said.

By Thursday afternoon, the family appeared settled at Lake Marion, swimming together in the shallow water near the wetland edge. Tenison said she has no plans to check on them again. Her Facebook post that morning had led to the ducklings' rescue before she finished her shift at work.