On May 23rd Mr. Ledgerwood first started to hear a series of tiny little quacks from his room’s window into the courtyard. He soon realized that a mother duck had given birth to eight baby ducklings in the bush in the middle school courtyard.

During his Period 1 class, the mother left temporarily, and a red-tailed hawk found the ducklings. The hawk snatched one and there was an attempt to scare the predatory bird off, but it took the baby duckling over to another roof and “tore it apart. It was actually really sad” (Mr. Ledgerwood).

After this incident, Mr. Ledgerwood and the other witnesses told Ms. Rehak what was happening because they vaguely remembered ducks having to be relocated some years before. Mrs Martinucci recalls, “Years ago, I think a janitor used to walk them through the school”.

Mrs. Rehak had a fabric and wire cage and, during period 8, decided to take matters into her own hands. She, Mr. Ledgerwood’s Human Rights class, and Ms. Broekman’s class helped her catch the ducklings  – which was a surprisingly difficult feat. She then took the cage of ducklings out to the front of the school where Ms. Broekman periodically checked on them to make sure the mother duck heard her babies’ quacking in order to find them.

There were actually varying viewpoints on this with Mr. McQuade saying that he wished “they had let nature take its course”. Fortunately, the mother did find her ducklings, and they set off to find a safer habitat.