Group seeks volunteers to help rescue trapped, injured birds

Paulette Blough loves animals so when a frantic quacking erupted outside her Carol Stream house recently, she had to investigate.

The scene Blough found broke her heart - eight tiny ducklings peeped helplessly from the depths of a drainage sewer while an agitated mother duck looked down at them.

It seemed like a bleak outlook for the ducklings that had fallen through holes in the grate while their mother was leading them to water. But a timely call by Blough to the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors reunited the lucky ducklings with Mom in short order.

Spring is one of the busiest times for the Bird Collision Monitors, a regional organization whose volunteers patrol Chicago's Loop at dawn during migration seasons to save birds that crash into skyscrapers.

Annette Prince, a Lombard resident, had just finished up with an earlier bird rescue when she got the "ducklings down a drainage sewer" call.

"It's something we hear about often and it's pretty distressing," Prince said. "Ducks make their way to water and there's open drainage areas they can fall into."

Blough also called out Carol Stream public works employees Marty Zamecnik and Gary Olson who pried off the grate to find the ducklings huddled together, cold and wet.

Prince had arrived with extendible nets to scoop up the babies and they were placed in a carrier. Within seconds their mother, who was watching from above, swooped down and followed closely as rescuers carried the ducklings to a nearby pond.

"She never left their sight," Blough said.

As soon as the carrier was opened, the ducklings ran out to their mother who led them into the water.

"Mom looked prouder than a peacock," Blough said.

"These situations don't always have a happy ending," Prince added, explaining that the ducklings could have died of hypothermia or gotten lost down connecting sewers.

"It was great to reunite the family. It would have been pretty sad if we couldn't reach them."

With the spring bird migration in full swing, Chicago Bird Monitors volunteers are recovering hundreds of birds that crash into see-through glass in Chicago skyscrapers thinking it's sky. They bring injured birds back to the DuPage County Forest Preserve's Willowbrook Wildlife Center in Glen Ellyn where many are treated and released. Birds that don't make it are sent to the Field Museum for study. But the group's efforts aren't limited to the city; bird monitors also are kept busy in the suburbs.

Currently, the group is looking for more volunteers and donations to help continue their mission.

Meanwhile, back at the Blough house, Paulette and her husband put a fish net over the sewer grate to prevent anything with webbed feet from slipping through.

After such an emotional afternoon, "I'm not going to go through this again," Blough said.

For information on joining the organization or how to assist birds in your neighborhood, go to www.birdmonitors.net. The CBCM's injured bird hotline is (773) 988-1867.