Impromptu Rescue
high park - june 11, 2022
My plan was to go to High Park to get a few specific shots I needed for a video on Mute Swans, and then to wander up and down Grenadier Pond for a bit to just see if I caught anything interesting. It turned out to be a lesson in serendipity.
First, I stumbled upon a snapping turtle on her way back from laying eggs. I wasn’t the first. I tend to ignore when I see a bunch of people gathered with cameras, it’s like I’ve already missed the boat and there’s an awkward feeling about crowding around all ostensibly getting the same shot. In this case, that was a dumb move. I missed the whole egg laying, and only realized what was going on as the mother turtle was heading back to the shore. At that point, awkwardness be damned, I joined everyone else with cameras (at a respectful distance) to film her return to the water. I also eavesdropped on a woman explaining that she was an official turtle protector at High Park, making sure they have safe passage and putting metal mesh over the nests to stop the eggs from being dug up.
Further up, another small group had gathered at a storm overflow basin. A wood duck mom and her brood had gotten down there, and only she could get back up. They had constructed a makeshift plastic ramp to some logs, and eventually most of the ducklings took the hint, but three remained at the bottom. The mom went to the other side of the pond. Charitably, it’s possible she couldn’t hear the remaining three crying over the running water. And four of us where stuck there trying to figure out what to do about them.
We ended up getting down in the basin and trying to herd them, trying to bait them, trying to get them in a crate… all failures, and complicated by a tunnel with a grate (and no other side they could reach) that they could retreat into whenever they felt threatened.
The woman who was down in the basin with me took a misstep and fell completely into the river, and had to abandon the effort. I decided that herding was just not working and wound up having to catch the ducklings one by one and bring them over to the other side. Exhausting, stressful, shoes completely soaked through… but boy did it feel good. Kind of put the other stresses of my life temporarily in perspective.