[Paddlewise] Winter Fun

The rivers in the Chicago suburbs are staring to freeze up, so paddling
requires a search for open water.  I was feeling a bit blue yesterday
about having to look for water when I got a phone call that changed
everything.

I am the aquatic arm of the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors.  We pick up
birds, on land, that have hit the tall buildings in the Loop during
migration seasons.  I go every Thursday at 5 AM and pick up birds for a
couple of hours.  The live ones go to rehab, the dead ones to the Field
Museum.  We go early because the injured get eaten by seagulls and rats
when the sun comes up.

Anyway, we have a hotline year around for whatever bird rescues might
become necessary.  When waterfowl are involved, I get the call.

This one was about a park district lake that was freezing over.  People
dump domestic ducks on these ponds all the time.  Domestics are not too
savy and often get frozen into the ice during cold snaps.  Last year a
guy was feeding five white ducks on this lake.  When winter came and the
lake stared freezing he called Animal Control and everyone else he could
think of, but no one came.  All five ducks froze in and got eaten alive.
 When he came to feed them the next morning he found bloody corpses.  He
had read about the hotline in the paper earlier this year, so he called.

Thus, on the coldest day of the season, I went with another monitor and
started the roundup.  For two hours we tried to coax the whiteys out of
the water with bread and cracked corn.  We got three to approach us and
caught two, but the others stayed away.  So out came the trusty Sabre
(an antique whitewater kayak, not a sharp sword) and I slid across the
ice into the water.

I had watched videos of Inuit guys harpooning narwhals and then tiring
them out by having floats attached for the whales to drag around.  So I
use a similar technique with ducks that can't fly.  I chase them until
they're so tired I can grab them.  This usually takes about an hour a
duck.  Yesterday was usual.  The first duck was a shallow diver, I could
often see him swimming underwater as he went away.  But he has good
lungs, so he didn't tire easily.  I finally got him by the neck and put
him ashore into a cat carrier.  (Irony is one of the great delights of
life!)

The next duck was a champion diver.  He went to the bottom of the lake,
so I had to guess as to where it was going.  Good practice for slalom,
but I don't race slalom anymore!  It eventually got to the ice and ran
onto an island.  I sneaked up to it on the island, but he ran away back
into the water.  About another thirty minutes of me playing cutting
horse to a duck and he finally wore out.

The last guy was pretty skinny and had no real endurance.  He played
ostrich by sticking his head and chest into a hole on the banks of the
island.  So I just walked up and grabbed his feet and out he popped.

Just another fun winter day in the life of a paddler.

If anyone cares, while running around on the ice I was wearing a Mustang
floater suit over a paddle jacket and paddle pants and neoprene boots
with a safety pfd that had a rope attached that was held by people on
shore.  And, unlike previous such rescues, I didn't go through the ice
this time.

Jim Tibensky
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