Family of ducks saved after Main Street flap
A wildlife photographer from East Calder reunited nine ducklings with their mother after they narrowly avoided a disaster trying to cross the Main Street.
Mark Begg saved the mallard ducklings after being alerted to their precarious attempts at crossing the Main Street in East Calder – they were in peril of being run over in the traffic.
Women first spotted the family of ducks trying to cross the road, chasing them away from the busy Main Street and into a nearby garden before calling Mark Begg to come to the rescue.
Mark is well known in the local community of Mid and East Calder, running his own aviary for injured birds that the local community put £750 towards to help set up.
In 2021 alone Mark took care of 69 birds.
He had just returned home from a wood pigeon rescue when he got the call from a stranger who knew he was the man to go to for bird rescuing.
When Mark arrived he found the female mallard with her nine ducklings.
His plan was to capture the mother duck before rounding up the ducklings and taking them to the Almondell to release.
Mark Begg said: “I’ve rescued ducks loads of times, but this was the first family of ducks I saved this year.
“Unfortunately mallard ducks can be pretty stupid. They nest in industrial estates ages away from the water which can be a problem when ducklings arrive as they have to navigate around seagulls, cars, foxes, and just about everything to get to the water.”
However, the mother duck proved too quick and Mark’s net too small and she flew off and out of sight.
Mark, with the help of the local women, rounded up the nine little ducklings into a cat carrier.
All the while the ducklings kept quacking, calling out for their mum.
Ten minutes later, the mother duck returned and began circling Mark and the ducklings.
Mark explained: “We couldn’t get them back together near the Main Street. Mallards aren’t very good at landing on hard surfaces and the mother ended up crash landing on the road.
“So the only way to get them back together was to take the ducklings down the embankment to the river, through the jaggies
and brambles and over a fence. I’m sure it was hysterical to watch.”
Mark carried the ducklings in the cat carrier from the Main Street to Almondell, walking across a field and over a fence to get there,
closely followed by the mother duck.
By the time Mark got closer to the Almondell, the duck was much closer to her children – so he released the ducklings who
headed towards their mother’s call. In just a few minutes they regrouped and the mother led her babies down the gentle slope and into the River Almond as one big family unit again.