A vagabond Pekin duck and sidekick were captured in mid-December after several months of unexpected freedom in and around Wayzata.
Using fishing nets, plastic fencing, a bag of corn and persistence, Laura Campaigne of Mound and five friends put the ducks behind bars. The birds went into a portable dog kennel for delivery to a farm.
Pekin is a domestic breed, often seen in an oven.
The Pekin and a partner of mixed parentage had been dumped at Grays Bay, Lake Minnetonka, last summer, Campaigne believes. She and friends had been trying to catch the birds for months.
Campaigne thinks the ducks once were pets of someone who tired of the idea.
The birds were seen swimming on Wayzata Bay while the lake was open. For a few days they swam with American coots in a small open channel of water. Eagles hunted the coots, but the Pekin was not bothered, nor its buddy, an apparent mix of Pekin and mallard.
The patch of water froze, the lake closed for the season, with no sign of the big white duck. Campaigne told me the bird later was seen on Spirit Island, a dot of land on the west edge of the bay entrance.
The two determined ducks walked more than a mile across the ice from the island to find open water at the Wayzata Yacht Club, east of downtown Wayzata. A bubbler there protects docks.
How the ducks found that water is a good question. These ducks are real survivors, but still.
The birds at the yacht club were fed daily by a good Samaritan, but that couldn't be a long-term solution.
The capture crew initially made a few notably unsuccessful attempts to net the ducks, using corn as a lure. The ducks are better swimmers than runners, but were swift afoot, evading capture for 90 minutes.
Pekins generally are too heavy to fly, and their wings often are clipped. These ducks used their wings to boost running, flapping madly, adding speed to escape. The sight of a net was enough to send these birds pell-mell for open water.
They waddled back for corn. This scenario was repeated.
"We finally got serious and fenced in an area with the snow fence and corralled them," Campaigne wrote in an e-mail.
"We threw the plastic fence on top of them, and everyone made sure they didn't escape!
"Yippeeee," she wrote.
The ducks, no worse for cold adventure or capture, were taken to a farm to join other ducks under luxury (so to speak) conditions.
Freeing yourself of pet responsibilities by abandoning animals outdoors is unkind at best. Most pets would starve, be eaten by predators, or, given the weather, freeze.
It is best to contact the Animal Humane Society. In Hennepin County, call the Golden Valley office at 763-489-2201.
Read Jim Williams' birding blog at startribune.com/wingnut.
