By Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN — Sure, the schools on the Upper East Side are good, but when your house is in the middle of a traffic island on Park Avenue, the commute can get pretty hairy.
That's what a mallard who had built her nest on Park Avenue realized when she tried to escort her dozen little ones across the avenue between 68th Street and 69th Street during Thursday morning's rush hour.
The mother usually keeps a home near the lake in Central Park, but when it came time to lay her eggs, she opted to build her nest on a patch of green protected by a high hedge on a traffic island at Park and 68th, a ranger said.
“Location, location, location — that rule she does abide by,” said Gary Rozman, the cultural affairs liason for the Parks Department.
After a good samaritan called Parks to alert them that the ducks were on the move, Rozman and other rangers went to the location to begin the rescue.
The mother was scared off by the hubbub around her, so rangers carried the squawking chicks — who are estimated to be about two weeks old — around the block in an attempt to lure her back to her ducklings.
Once the mother had the ducklings in her sights, she began to follow the rangers as they walked back toward Central Park.
Uniformed rangers stopped traffic at the intersections as the city made way for the ducklings.
Once they reached Fifth Avenue on the Central Park side, the rangers helped the ducklings over the stone wall, and they fell in line behind their mother.
As for the ducklings' father, Rozman said, “I'm sure he’s still in the picture but he wasn’t involved.”
Rozman said he participated in a similar rescue last year, and speculated that this particular duck likes to lay her eggs "someplace off the beaten path," not realizing that Park Avenue is in the thick of things.
"It feels good to help in the reunification of a family," he added.
