Black duck rescue

I was called to Nagambie Leisure Park to
help a Pacific black duck with a hook in its
bill just over a week ago. Once we reached
the location, despite searching the entire park
on both the river side and the lakeside, my
son and I couldn’t find any Black ducks. All
ducks seemed to be missing in action.

Apart from a pair of Wood ducks, we
failed to find any, which is a bit unusual for
the Leisure Park! We had searched for over
an hour but didn’t want to leave as Nagambie
is a bit of a trek for us and knowing it was a
resident duck, we remained hopeful he’d turn
up before dark. We knew if he didn’t show
up, we’d have to return to try to find him the
following day.

We were retracing our search pattern
when a staff member called to ask where I
was because some people fishing had a few
Black ducks turn up looking for scraps. We
made a beeline to the location, threw out
some tucker but sadly, our hooked duck
wasn’t with this group.

Anxious we were running out of time,
we continued our search along the riverbank,
retracing our previous searches yet again.
A couple of swans were walking along the
bank, saw our bucket of tucker so came to
investigate. We obliged by throwing some
seed out in the hope that we’d attract more
than the swans. A few water hens, an Ibis and
some Black ducks suddenly appeared. As
each duck arrived we checked for hooks. Still
no hooked duck.

Then suddenly I realised I was staring at
the last one to climb out of the water and up
the bank, less than a metre away from my feet
and it had a hook sticking out the side of its
bill!

I already had the pole net on the ground in
place but had to wait for him to get in the right
position beside my net to quickly flip it over
to catch him. I also had the net gun on me. I
decided to use the net gun to speed things up
as it was getting late and cold. I didn’t seem
to be quite on my game that day as the first
shot flew a centimetre over his head.

The net gun is a great rescue tool and
I’ve caught many flying birds with it over
the years. I have a new one which was kindly
purchased for me by the Goulburn Murray
Landcare Network last year when my old
net gun finally packed it in. The new gun is
supposed to be the same, it is not.

Like everything these days, modifying
something on the whim that it is better, at
the sacrifice of a design that works perfectly,
seems to be the standard.

The new net gun does not perform as
well and it is taking me awhile to adjust to
its shortfalls. Disappointed, I repacked the
net head, which takes a bit of time, then stood
ready for my second opportunity, waiting for
him to come back into range.

The problem now was that most of the
birds were full and weren’t that fussed to
come in for food.

Finally, our hook victim decided to exit
the water again. I was getting worried that I
may not get another chance that day so took
the shot. Got him! Both duck and I shot into
action.

It’s important to run as soon as you make
a successful shot as the net entraps them,
but the bird can still attempt to get out of the
net and sometimes can, if they’ve only been
caught close to edge of the net.

This duck took off to where it knew it
was safe - back to the water. He made it into
the river, net and all. My heart sank as he
struggled to swim, fully entangled in my net.
These nets have small weights on each corner
and I knew if I didn’t go after him, the hook
was going to be the least of his problems!

Throwing off my coat and shoes, quick
check of my pockets for anything not
waterproof, I took the plunge, all the while
hoping the duck didn’t make it all the way out
into the centre of the river.

Lucky for me, the bottom of the net got
snagged on an underwater branch about five
or six metres out. Unlucky for me, the river
here is well over my head about one step from
the bank so entailed a full swim. I reached
the flailing duck pretty quickly, grabbed
it but the net was really snagged below the
water. I didn’t like the thought of destroying
an 80 dollar net but could not reach down
enough while holding the duck to free it so
I ended up pulling hard, felt something break
and I hightailed it back to shore carrying the
entangled duck.

Once high, but certainly not dry, we set to
work extracting the poor duck from the net.
Remarkably, my net was still entirely intact,
even all the weights were there!

I was able to remove the hook on-site
without causing any further damage. The
hook was not embedded in the duck’s bill
as first thought, it was straight through the
centre of the tongue. The duck was a good
weight and the hook hole was healed already
at the edges of the wound due to how long
it had been embedded, so we were able to
release it immediately.