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 *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Thanks for this unusual and interesting story. You should submit it to the cable program "Dirtiest Jobs" as they are, I think, starting to run out of material. Yours would be right up their alley, I think. Craig Jungers Royal City, WA On 1/29/07, James <jimtibensky_at_fastmail.fm> wrote: > > 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. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
--- Craig Jungers <crjungers_at_gmail.com> wrote: > Thanks for this unusual and interesting story. You > should submit it to the > cable program "Dirtiest Jobs" as they are, I think, > starting to run out of > material. Yours would be right up their alley, I > think. Its the work INSIDE the wildlife rehab centers which are particularly messy. There is lots and lots and lots of cleaning to be done -- poopy cleaning for the most part. :P Derek ____________________________________________________________________________________ Sucker-punch spam with award-winning protection. Try the free Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/features_spam.html *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:43 PDT