Those of you who *don't* like sappy nature stories, move along. ;D

The last two days we've noticed a male mallard duck hanging out in the 
middle of our street, seemingly oblivious to traffic, and reluctant  to 
scare away.  Tonight, at a little after 6 PM, an unfamiliar car pulled 
into my driveway and parked in front of my house, and being a suspicious 
"neighborhood watch" type, I watched as two unfamiliar teenagers got out 
of the car to see where they were going.  Then I saw the mallard again, 
on my neighbor's lawn, and I looked back at the teens and saw what 
stopped them; the mallard's mate, frozen by the side of the road.  I 
headed over.  Turns out the teens saw another car, that was speeding 
through the neighborhood, strike the female, and while they didn't know 
what to do, they didn't want to leave her (sappy point number one; some 
teens *do* care).  I went back in the house to find the number for 
animal control.  Amazingly, the couple didn't have a cell phone!  
Teens.  Without a cell phone.  In the DC area.  This is a sighting for 
*some* kind of Life List, isn't it? <G>

Unfortunately, the Verizon white pages don't have an emergency number 
for Montgomery County's animal control, and the regular offiice was 
closed for the day, so more time was lost while I called the police 
non-emergency number to find out where to call.  Then I got a big, old 
towel, hoping to wrap the duck in it, because everytime a car went by, 
she'd try to waddle away; she couldn't fly and her left leg was clearly 
broken; maybe her wing as well.  There was a small pool of blood in the 
street and a clump of feathers; mostly down, maybe three primary.  
Approaching her with the towel only scared her more, so we decided to 
just hang out so we didn't lose track of her.  There are also a number 
of roaming neighborhood cats we were concerned about.  It was getting 
dark, and cool, so after another fifteen minutes or so I assured the 
kids I'd keep watch so they could continue on their way.  Eventually two 
of my other neighbors came out to find out what was wrong, so we stood 
around in the dusk talking about our (indoor!) pet cats and our love of 
animals and birds and so on, and trying to figure out how we could keep 
the mallard from continuing to crawl across the third neighbor's yard.  
Then, sure enough, cats appeared, and I had to shoo them away.  Finally, 
the neighbor whose lawn it was came out; I've lived here for 6 years, 
she's lived there, diagonally across from me for 13 and we'd never met 
before.  It's now dark, and 7 PM, and we're all looking for the van and 
at the duck.  Then, a brainstorm!  The first neighbor remembered she had 
some fencing that had been useless in protecting her garden from deer, 
but at last, it had a use.  We slowly unrolled the fencing and circled 
around the duck, corralling her so she could no longer get away or hurt 
herself more. 

Naturally, the very moment we'd secured her, animal rescue showed up!  
He stepped over the fencing, scooped her in *his* towel and she's off to 
Second Chance for rehab.  A community comes together to save a duck and 
all is right in Cloverly. :D  Now, if I can just find the nest they must 
be protecting.

I also saw a just-mature (partial white head) Bald Eagle and an Osprey 
fly overhead today, but that was at the Tidal Basin, which of course is 
not in Maryland, so we won't discuss that on this Maryland only bird 
list. ;D

Anyway, long story short, the Emergency Number for Animal Control in 
Montgomery County is 240-773-5925, and Second Chance will get a check in 
the mail from me tomorrow.

Laura Appelbaum,
Sappy animal lover,
Cloverly, MD