Officer, city worker reunite feathered family

Port Washington police officer Gary Belzer and street department worker Joe Alore came to the rescue of a young family last week, reuniting a mother and five of her babies.

The family of ducks was separated when the ducklings fell through the grate on the storm basin at 100 Thomas Dr., near Arby’s on Port’s north side, just before 2 p.m. Monday, June 29.

The mother duck and one of her ducklings were standing in the street quacking, leading someone to call the police department.

Belzer said when he arrived, the mother duck and duckling walked to the side of the road and hid in the bushes, where yet another duckling was waiting. It didn’t take too long to figure out what had happened, he said.

“I looked down in the storm drain and there were five babies,” he said.

He called the Street Department, and Alore responded. They lifted the grate and found the ducklings “splashing around and squawking,” Street Commissioner JD Hoile said.

The ducklings were swimming in a circle in the water at the bottom of the catch basin, about three feet below the street, Belzer said.

“We were able to scoop up the babies and return them to the mom,” he said.

Mom and babies hid in the bushes for a time, but Belzer said that when he passed by about a half-hour later the family was walking through the North Port Shopping Center parking lot — headed, he said toward nearby Sauk Creek.

Hoile said it isn’t unusual for the Street Department to be called to remove ducklings from the city’s sewers. 

“People usually hear them and call the police,” he said.

While adult ducks have large enough feet that they can cross the sewer grates without falling in, ducklings slip through, Hoile said.

It usually doesn’t take too long to send the babies on their way with their parents, he added.

“It probably took him (Alore) longer to drive up there than to get them out,” Hoile said.