Cellphone app helps save trapped ducklings in Windsor
A cellphone app is being credited for helping save the lives of a pair of ducklings in Windsor, Ont.
A mother duck and her two babies were walking along Longfellow Avenue when the two ducklings fell more than a metre straight down into a storm drain.
"She started to walk away and we heard noise coming out of the sewer," resident Michael Williams said of the mother duck.
Once inside, the scared ducklings swam into a pipe leading underground, away from the reservoir.
That's when Williams called the City of Windsor and pulled out his smartphone.
While waiting for maintenance crew, Williams downloaded a duck call app for his Blackberry Z10.
Together, Williams and city employee George Thomas began the rescue effort.
Williams used the digital duck call to lure the ducklings back into the main reservoir, where Thomas scooped them up with a net.
"I thought maybe there was an app for duck calls. Thankfully, they have an app for everything and it worked out," Williams said. "I held it up to the sewer and the two ducks just came out."
CBC Windsor's Katia Augustin caught the entire rescue on video with her iPhone.
Thomas said the city receives two or three calls a year reporting ducks trapped in storm drains.
"Usually the [Ministry of Natural Resources] comes by to help out. We got lucky this time," Thomas said. "He used his app. We pulled them out. That was it.
"It feels good. It feels blessed."
