Ducks make their break from school courtyard
Washington Elementary students line up to guide a mother duck and her ducklings from the Washington courtyard to a creek next to the school. Press photos by Kate Hayden
Washington Elementary School Principal Kara Shannon encourages ducklings to hop up the ledge into school after they avoided a ramp staff tried to set up for them.
Washington Elementary students watch a mother duck and her ducklings march into the creek next to the school.
By Kate Hayden, khayden@charlescitypress.com
Being a new mother is stressful, but one mother duck had a village of students to help shepherd her flock around.
Washington Elementary staff and students delivered the nervous little family to a nearby creek for the second year in a row, after the mallard hatched her eggs inside the school’s courtyard.
“Most likely it was the same [duck]” from last year, Principal Kara Shannon said.
Nine ducklings hatched sometime over the weekend in the courtyard, Shannon said. One more egg in the nest, behind the courtyard bushes, never hatched.
Kids returning to Washington from the 2015-16 school year remembered watching last year’s family make the trek and were excited to help them again, Shannon said.
“We talked to them about staying really still, sitting elbow to elbow, knee to knee, really tight together,” Shannon said. “We talked about the safety of not reaching out and trying to touch her, letting her get safely to her actual habitat.”
Shannon contacted the Iowa Department of Natural Resources after realizing the duck had made her nest in the courtyard again, and updated the DNR after the eggs had hatched.
The ducklings were around four or five days old by their first trek, and school staff had left food and a full kiddie pool out in the courtyard for them until they could leave the school.
“The sooner the better. She’s looking for a way out so she’s pacing,” Shannon said.
The little family was reasonably protected during Wednesday night’s storm, with four school walls surrounding the courtyard and nestled among the bushes opposite the courtyard trees.
“It worked out really well with our science units, too. We have been focusing on plants and animals and their habitats, and how they can change their habitats, or habitats change because of them,” Shannon said. “Our kindergartners also had chicks and ducklings that had just hatched from eggs, so they kind of knew the whole process.”
“To have it happen real-life in our courtyard is kind of cool for them.”
The experience proves to be very memorable for the kids lined up, watching the little family’s march.
“I love how excited their faces are and their eyes. … That is really exciting for them,” Shannon said. “Even this year, we still had kids talking about it from last year.”
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